Juneteenth is a federal holiday in the United States that memorializes and celebrates the emancipation of African-American slaves. Daniella Uche-Oji didn’t learn about the holiday in great detail until she moved to the United States from Nigeria.
She designed typographical and editorial layouts to represent “freedom” in a minimalistic style to commemorate the federal holiday. Throughout her design, she focused on the question, “What’s the culture?” which helps the viewer decipher the experiences and struggles that black people face globally.
I learned about Juneteenth in depth when I moved to the US from Lagos, Nigeria. Funny, how they never really taught much about that specific part of the black experience in Nigeria. We learned very vaguely about slavery, and almost had no idea what black people in America go through on a daily basis- of course until one moves here and sees it first hand.
It has always been important for me to highlight issues of all black people regardless of where their experience was formed. Be it slavery or colonization.
It was really amazing that they decided to make it a federal holiday even though it should have been made a federal holiday in 1865. My design was to celebrate “freedom” and in a very simple minimalist way convey through the question “what’s the culture?” that all black people all over the world are still uncovering and learning all of our different experiences; more now than ever thanks to social media.
I executed it using Photoshop: I used cut-out colored collages and repeated typography. The font I used is HWT Lustig Elements. I didn’t choose the color yellow for any specific reason. I love using playful colors and layouts.
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