United by CITY: The Tifos
Written by: Michael Haffner
Home is not just a place. Home can be found in people. In the connective energy you feel with strangers in your community. In a team that represents your city. In an artistic medium which you can express yourself. And in the case of St. Louis CITY SC, home is where a story begins.
Meg McCully hadn’t done art in four years when she joined the Saint Louis City Punks. Years earlier, she had studied art in college, but it wasn’t until hearing a call for arms from the supporter group that she decided to raise her hand.
Needless to say, she was nervous. Really, really nervous. Worried she had lost that creative spark. But she was waiting for that opportunity to pick it up again. It just took a little motivation and inspiration from a team and place she now calls home.
What began as a small idea with minimum colors featuring one of the stars of the team, eventually led to a tifo that’s 130 feet wide by 50 feet tall. It wasn’t long before Meg was wrapping up the final design and saying to herself, ‘I think this might be crazy enough to work.”
This is the story – in her words – of designing the tifo for the St. Louis CITY SC match versus Seattle Sounders at CITYPARK on October 21, 2023.
The Love for All We Built
Even though she is head of the history-making group that introduced St. Louis into the MLS, Carolyn Kindle probably never imagined her likeness would stand over 20 ft tall as the centerpiece of a tifo. But it makes perfect sense for the final match of CITY’s regular season. It was an inaugural season for the history books. What the club achieved and what the fans have built is nothing short of monumental. From the ownership group to the players to the fans, it took people from all over to make this season happen – a home was built from hard work and a passion to bring something special to St. Louis.
“My first idea was to have the players kind of bursting out from around the CITY crest instead of CITYPARK. But then we wanted it to be around the theme of this is our home. That sentiment of just showing our love for the team, the club, and everything that the season had represented, and that this is the home that we have all built together. Then the idea of the heads of these players rising out of the stadium at that scale seemed incredibly cool. And I wanted Carolyn on there to represent the league’s first women-led ownership group. She was there from the absolute start.”
Bringing the Team to Life with Just Four Colors
This wasn’t Meg’s first attempt at bringing the players to life through the team colors. Utilizing the four team colors and a bold graphic style, Meg had been designing patches all season for the Saint Louis City Punks that featured players in the style of the tifo. One of the initial patches was Indiana Vassilev wearing an Indiana Jones fedora style hat, and of course, João Klauss wearing a Santa Claus hat. She would text her mom after drawing each one to see if her mom recognized the player based on the likeness. It was a way for Meg to test if the design would work for even casual fans. As if there was any doubt after her years studying art in college, she passed the test.
“I took a color theory class in college, and we had to pick one color and mix it with black and white to get all the tints and shades with one color. I picked red. Around that time, I did a portrait in a style that many might associate with Shepard Fairey. That portrait with the four main team colors was the idea. The design was all hand drawn, no photo manipulation. Every line and highlight and shadow on the faces was put there intentionally. The base tone for the skin is Arch Steel. CITY Red is the mid tone. River Blue is the dark shadows. And Energy Yellow is used for additional details and highlights. The initial drawing took 80 to 100 hours in total.”
70s and 80s Punk Inspiration
The Ramones are one of the most iconic punk rock bands, and the 1976 hit “Blitzkrieg Bop” is one of their most recognizable songs. Despite the historical reference in the title, the song is about kids feeling the escape and excitement at a concert. Tommy Ramone went on to say that he was inspired to write an anthem that would energize and unite the audience during their live performances. “We wanted to make people feel like they were part of something important, that they could make a difference,” Tommy Ramone explained. Decades later, the song continues to energize crowds and was chosen to blast through CITYPARK as the tifo was lifted over the Supporter Section. With an accidental, distressed look that made the tifo look like a worn vintage band shirt and jagged, striking letters, “This Is Our Home” became not just a statement but an anthem set to a call to action: “Hey, ho, let's go!”
“I wanted this bright, 80s style for the text. One with broad brushstrokes that was bold and would look really good at that scale. I found one that worked perfectly for getting that theme across and then put that bold style in the hair as well, where Tim and Carolyn have those shocks of red and yellow. The 80s pops of color really tied it together thematically.
And Andy [Andy Haase, one of the leaders of the Saint Louis City Punks] had this idea of separate pullovers to show off moments from the season. We went with this idea of square Polaroids. They fit perfectly with this 80s punk style. We knew that it wouldn’t translate if every player was small on the centerpiece, but everyone deserves to be recognized. So, we wanted to have the pictures of the team and to highlight those moments of glory from throughout the season.”
