Juneteenth Poster, 2011

The Juneteenth promotional items made use of
the Juneteenth flag and a background image
of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Our Library Partnership branch held their annual Juneteenth Celebration last week and asked for a variety of visuals to promote it with. The exercise included a website webslide and blog image, 500 quarter-page handbills, 30 11x17 inch signs, and two different large format 20x30 signs--one to announce the event line-up of performers and one to thank participating vendors.

Each of the items made use of the same visual: a sepia-toned emancipation proclamation document with a modified Juneteenth flag overlapping the center portion of the proclamation so that text details about the event could be written on it. Clever Alert!: And just by sheer luck (that's my story, and I'm sticking with it) the star landed right on Abraham Lincoln's face. Any clever socio-political implications that might be associated with that arrangement, I'll leave up to the viewers.

More importantly to me, not everyone is familiar with the history and symbolism of Juneteenth and it's flag, so I included a few short descriptive lines around the flag's star:


"The Juneteenth flag is a symbol that gives all Americans the opportunity to recognize    American freedom and African American History." 
   
"The Juneteenth symbol represents the star of Texas bursting with new freedom throughout the land, over a new horizon."
   
"The Juneteenth celebration represents a new freedom, a new people, and a new star."

The following morning after the event, our headquarters librarian stuck his head in my office door to thank me again for all my help with creating the promotional materials and added that they had over 500 people in attendance--not including all the performers and vendors. Not a bad turn-out, I'd say!