For Thieb Delaporte-Richard, the Parisian cafe inside strolling distance of his house in Santa Monica was the perfect spot for an early-morning chat.
Whereas standing in line, the aroma of baking croissants wafted, and the buzzing of espresso machines reverberated off the skeletal stays of an previous church that now homes the café.
“This kind of feels like home, to be honest, and I think that’s the reason I like this place,” Delaporte-Richard mentioned of each the cafe and Santa Monica.
Born in Strasbourg, France, Delaporte-Richard spent a lot of his childhood bouncing round — from jap France to Paris to French Guiana in South America — by no means dwelling in a single place for quite a lot of years and by no means fairly positive find out how to reply when requested which place he actually known as house.
“Every city, everywhere, you can see the sunset. But here, it’s so unique — with no clouds and those colors,” French artist Thieb Delaporte-Richard says. “For some reason, it feels like I only see those colors here.”
(Los Angeles World Cup 2026 host committee)
He ultimately returned to Paris to attend Gobelins design college. Whereas there, he had the chance to journey to the U.S. for a three-month internship in Santa Monica — his first style of the beachside metropolis, the place he says he “had this vision of Hollywood, palm trees, the sunset,” and wished to have the “California experience.”
A decade later, Delaporte-Richard, 30, wouldn’t wish to be wherever else. Day-after-day, he’s nonetheless drawn to the Santa Monica Pier, Pacific Coast Freeway, the Santa Monica Mountains and the long-lasting seaside sunsets.
“Every city, everywhere, you can see the sunset,” he mentioned. “But here, it’s so unique — with no clouds and those colors. For some reason, it feels like I only see those colors here. The way it bounces — it’s so red at the bottom, then you see hues of orange, purple and then blue, nothing to hide it. That makes it so unique.”
In a yr’s time, when groups and followers arrive in Los Angeles for the 2026 World Cup — with Los Angeles set to host opening stage matches and quarterfinals at SoFi Stadium — Delaporte-Richard’s interpretation of that sundown will blanket Southern California. From partitions to billboards to screens, the putting visible will function the focus of the official L.A. poster for the match.
Delaporte-Richard’s pièce de résistance.
Like many in L.A. County, Delaporte-Richard is a transplant drawn to the world in pursuit of a dream. For him, that dream is artwork, and the area metropolis welcomed him. His L.A.-centric poster stands as a love letter to the place he adores.
“My story is L.A.,” Delaporte-Richard mentioned. “Moving here, I realized how much deeper it is — how L.A. is also all of the stories that people told me. That really changed my vision and made me realize it’s much more than what I thought. When I moved here, it was just supposed to be for a short time. And I realized, well, I love this place.”
Delaporte-Richard didn’t need his poster to be only a guidelines of landmarks or symbols — his preliminary intuition was to incorporate each side of the town. However as soon as he scrapped that concept, he targeted on subtlety: a cautious steadiness between illustration and cliché, aiming to seize an genuine L.A. really feel.
He settled on the idea of a silhouetted footballer mid-strike — a composite impressed by numerous goal-scoring moments, together with one by his childhood hero, Ronaldinho — launching a left-footed shot in opposition to the setting solar over the downtown skyline. Town’s signature palm timber stand tall, whereas Easter eggs just like the sweeping searchlights of a Hollywood premiere reveal themselves on a second look. The participant’s define stays ambiguous sufficient to let viewers think about their favourite star within the scene.
“A lot of people reached out to tell me, ‘Oh, it truly captures the spirit of L.A.,’” Delaporte-Richard mentioned. “There is nothing more meaningful to me than people who’ve lived here their entire lives, for generations, telling me it feels like home. A poster like that is not just a marketing visual. To me, it’s a piece of culture. It becomes part of the history.”
The prospect to showcase his artwork, nevertheless, almost slipped away. Delaporte-Richard discovered in regards to the contest near the submission deadline. Pressed for time, he put collectively a storyboard in just a few hours in his condo. Throughout the subsequent few days, he feverishly sketched and digitally painted the piece. By the top of the week, he completed the challenge and submitted it with simply two hours to spare.
“I knew I wouldn’t have much time,” Delaporte-Richard mentioned, shuffling by his black pocket book stuffed with unique sketches and idea artwork explaining his objective of capturing the vitality and movement soccer brings. “I searched for an idea that would work and created that connection between soccer and Los Angeles.”
When Delaporte-Richard hit ship on his submission, he wasn’t positive what to anticipate. At first, all he obtained was an automatic message thanking him and highlighting that greater than 900 folks had entered the poster contest.
Then got here the ready sport. In December, he was notified that he was considered one of 16 finalists whose work was getting evaluated by 5 Los Angeles County specialists in public artwork and cultural exhibitions. A number of months later, Jason Krutzsch of the Los Angeles Sports activities and Leisure Fee reached out with a message.
It took a cellphone name for it to lastly hit Delaporte-Richard — he received. It was a giant second he shared together with his spouse, who moved to California with him from France, and with family and friends again house in Paris.
For the primary time, the soft-spoken, introverted Delaporte-Richard discovered himself within the highlight, together with his first main challenge now obtainable for the world to buy — unfamiliar territory for him. Initially, the poster’s launch left him anxious, not sure of how folks would react.
Would they find it irresistible? Would they hate it? The burden felt heavier due to how deeply private the challenge was.
Delaporte-Richard’s determination to enter the competition comes from a lifelong love of soccer that started in his youth in France, the place he first discovered to kick a ball. To him, Brazilian legends Ronaldo and Ronaldinho, Argentine star Lionel Messi and French hero Zinedine Zidane had been magicians dedicated to their craft, inspiring Delaporte-Richard to observe his path.
When he was 16, his first designs had been soccer banners and photoshopped graphics. An opportunity to rejoice soccer sparked his love of artwork.
Having by no means been to a World Cup, Delaporte-Richard says it’s an honor to now have his work be a part of the video games. He plans to attend matches at SoFi Stadium, the venue he handed by a months in the past when his art work was first placed on show by the L.A. World Cup host committee.
“If you ask the person who’s got into design, creating football banners, about doing the World Cup poster, 15 years later, I would not believe it,” Delaporte-Richard mentioned. “I wouldn’t believe it at all. So this experience in L.A. and in the U.S. made it a reality.”
