About This Stamp
This Forever® stamp celebrates women’s soccer in the United States. From youth leagues to the elite world champion U.S. national team, millions of girls and women throughout the country participate in the fast-paced, competitive sport of soccer.
The stamp artwork depicts a female soccer player in action, walloping a ball with a side volley. The somewhat grainy rendering lends a timeless quality to the design, evoking not just a single all-star athlete or era but the entire legacy of women’s soccer.
For decades, women’s athletic programs were all but invisible on college and university campuses, receiving very little of the funding and none of the recognition of their male counterparts. In 1972, Congress amended federal education law by adding Title IX, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex from any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.
By 1985, female soccer players were finally able to compete on an international level. That year the U.S. women’s national team played its first official matches in Italy. In 1991, the U.S. women’s national soccer team competed in the first official FIFA Women’s World Cup, held in China, and won the championship.
Despite these successes, women’s soccer remained relatively unknown. It didn’t truly enter the international arena and gain a following until the 1996 Summer Olympics when women’s soccer was included as a sport for the first time. The U.S. beat out China for the gold medal.
Since then, dozens of elite female athletes have donned the U.S. women’s national soccer team jersey and dominated around the world. In 2019, the U.S. made history as the only team to win four FIFA Women’s World Cup titles.
Art director Antonio Alcalá designed the stamp with an original illustration by Noah MacMillan (1988–2022).
The Women’s Soccer stamp is being issued as a Forever® stamp. This Forever stamp is always equal to the current First-Class Mail® one-ounce price.
Stamp Art Director
Antonio Alcalá
Antonio Alcalá served on the Postmaster General’s Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee from 2010 until 2011, when he left to become an art director for the U.S. Postal Service's stamp development program.
He is founder and co-owner of Studio A, a design practice working with museums and arts institutions. His clients include: the National Gallery of Art, Library of Congress, National Portrait Gallery, National Museum of Women in the Arts, The Phillips Collection, and Smithsonian Institution. He also lectures at colleges including the Corcoran College of Art + Design, SVA, Pratt, and MICA.
In 2008, his work and contributions to the field of graphic design were recognized with his selection as an AIGA Fellow. He has judged international competitions for the Society of Illustrators, American Illustration, AIGA, and Graphis. Alcalá also serves on the Smithsonian National Postal Museum and Poster House Museum’s advisory councils. His designs are represented in the AIGA Design Archives, the National Postal Museum, and the Library of Congress Permanent Collection of Graphic Design.
Alcalá graduated from Yale University with a BA in history and from the Yale School of Art with an MFA in graphic design. He lives with his wife in Alexandria, Virginia.
Stamp Artist
Noah MacMillan
Noah MacMillan (1988–2022) grew up in Tacoma Park, Maryland, and studied communication design with a focus on illustration at Washington University in St. Louis.
After working at design and marketing agencies in St. Louis, MacMillan transitioned to freelance illustration, working on projects that spanned a wide range of editorial, advertising, and large-format designs. A lifelong passion for soccer led to a stream of sports-related work for clients such as Major League Soccer, the Football Association, FIFA, EA Sports, and Adidas. In addition to a variety of other projects, he also took on the unique challenge of creating murals.
MacMillan liked to make drawings that told stories and elicited feelings through simple design and obsessive attention to color. His work has been recognized by Communication Arts, American Illustration, PRINT Magazine, and the Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles.
MacMillan created the illustration for the Women’s Soccer (2023) stamp.