(Bad) flags of our (city) fathers...

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Art is vital for a quality of lifestyle, for me anyway. I see art and design and architecture and music as the things that go hand and hand with civilization, and gives us aspirations to be better individuals. So we would naturally expect national flags to be symbols of pride providing us with visual reminders of our national hopes and our past. So it follows, quite a few citizens take great civic pride in their hometown and their city flags. Roman Mars who is addition to having one of the coolest and badest names I ever did read, is also a radio program host (99% Invisible is the title of his program), discussing design and architecture, and he also a specialist in vexillology, the study of flags.

Roman Mars is on a mission for American cities to get rid of their horrible flags. In a recent TED talk, Mr. Mars gave a presentation on city flags that I thought was pretty interesting and funny and quite entertaining. I've had a life-long love affair with flags, e.g. I was mesmerized when our family visited the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.; and I saw the United States flag that flew over Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore harbor, it was that flag provided the inspiration for Francis Scott Key writing his poem The Star Spangled Banner.

Mr. Mars noticed when he lived in Chicago, the city flag was everywhere, adopted by most citizens in the most unusual places, he mentioned an observer noticed when he got his haircut, a barber shop had the Chicago city flag on a tool box. Sure, municipal buildings will fly the flag, and it's frequently used to drape policemen and firemen coffins at funerals, but its EVERYWHERE, e.g. backpacks, and even in graffiti.


Chicago's city flag: each six sided star represents a iconic moment in its history


It has been embraced by the citizens in a big way, attesting to its popularity. But why? Mr. Mars thinks because it has compelling design causes a "feed-back loop." Seeing a good design affects civic pride, and people want to display that flag, leading to more use and adoption by citizens at large, generating even more civic pride. In fact, like good graphic design, there really are only a few basics for good flag design.




1. Keep the design simple (a child could draw it from memory)
2. Use meaningful symbolism
3. Use 2 to 3 basic colors (there can be flexibility for this)
4. NO LETTERING OR SEALS! (they were designed for use on paper, relatively close to your eyes)
5. Be distinctive (or be related).
All flags should be able to fit on an 3 X 5 index card, because that's what they will look like at a distance. That rules out text and entire coats of arms with mottos.


Chicago's flag has all the good elements: The blue stripes represent the Chicago River and Lake Michigan, which were the main reasons Chicago became one of the largest cities in the United States: water commerce. It uses red, white and blue, it uses four six-sided stars to symbolize four key dates in Chicago's history, events that helped make its identity unique.

There are some other examples of good flag design in the United States, and other cities in the world.

The city of Amsterdam has, according to Mr. Mars, one of the world's "badest-ass" city-flags and it has been adopted by the citizens in a big way, it's seen everywhere in the city. What makes it work so well, according to Mr. Mars, the flag is drawn from a single lement from the city coat of arms.

City of Amsterdam's coat of arms	City of Amsterdam's flag

As Mr. Mars noted, if an American city had designed a flag for Amsterdam, they'd likely have ruined it by plastering the city's name at the bottom in some gaudy font. But that had me thinking, why not take a look at the flags of cities of several of our community members, and see what they look like--- and I have to say, for me personally, Cape Town Africa is in the world's top five:


Cape Town's city flag, one of the most beautiful in the world, I think



For me, I read the flag like this (I'm not a native, I've never traveled there, and I only have an admittedly light understanding of the history, so my reading of the flag could be quite wrong): the rainbow symbolism for the diverse population is self evident to me, so I assume that;s very powerful for Cape Town's citizens. For me visually, the apparent speed in how the paint brush strokes are applied tells me "We're busy; and we have places to go! So let's go, NOW!" Also for me, the direction of the strokes (moving from the left to the right) and written on an upward arch -- that's symbolic of moving to the future (away from the past, but never quite forgetting it either); and the flag also reminds me visually of body painting, which is a vital component of South African culture. And the city flag ties in beautifully with the national South African flag too. It's perfect in every design sense.

Another top tier flag for me is Washington, D.C. The flag is based on George Washington's personal coat of arms (which may have been an element in the design for the flag of the United States):




and Madison, Wisconsin:



and London, U.K.:



Mr. Roman singles out San Francisco as one of the worst flags in the United States. I'm very sorry yes_justice : (




So, what is the most horrible and horrendous city flag in the United States? That honor goes to Pocatello, Idaho:


And why yes, they have a trademark notice as part of their city flag!





You can watch Mr. Mar's entire TED talk (highly recommended, he has a pretty media rich presentation, along with a great sense of humor for a subject that could be potentially dry as dust.

Comments

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

I would have loved it if I received some postcards with stamps that look like these flags. I could totally collect such bad flags! :-)

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

My hometown's flag/sigil is quite simple:



It features the most famous landmark in town, and signifies Hafnarfjörður's significance as a naval hub.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

And of course, a good analysis of the Cape Town flag. By the way, the white line crossing the rainbow is immediately recognisable to every Capetonian:



Devils Peak at the left end, Table Mountain in the center, Lions Head on the right. Seen from the direction of Robben Island, where Mandela spent 27 years of his life in prison, longing to return to the promised land that his eyes were seeing every single day.

I adore my city sooo much...

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Ankh-Morpork city flag FTW, yo!

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

This is really great. I have to admit, I've never really given much thought to flags of local municipalities. That Pocatello flag is just horrifying.

I've always liked the Cayman Islands flag (for personal and family reasons) but I can see that it would probably considered not a "good" flag by these criteria. I can agree with those arguments, even if this flag will always hold a special place in my heart:

(This is the pre-1999 flag, the one I grew up with. The current flag lost the white disc, and they increased the size of the Coat of Arms.)




Also, I'm sorry, this was a really good post, but this popped into my head the second I saw it, and I really couldn't resist:

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

Preach it, Dr Cooper!

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Hehehe. TOO funny, man ;)

Glad you liked it.

P.S. I have never met anyone from the Cayman islands before, so that's really cool too!

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

I'm not from there myself, but my Grandfather moved there and became a citizen at some point before I was born. We'd go and visit a few times a year, so I spent a lot of my childhood on the main island up until he passed away.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

When I visited Fort Lauderdale, friends with boats said they'd go over to Bimini, about a 45 min ride (or maybe 90 mins) and you could hang out at Casinos and stuff. Seemed wild, but you needed a passport (I didn't have one), so I never went. Very cool though.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Plovdiv: "Ancient and Eternal".

It shows the two lions and the crown (my country's heraldic sign), plus the 7 hills of Plovdiv, with the Maritza river below them.

Ancient indeed it is. Plovdiv is known as Europe's oldest-inhabited city (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-walker/plovdiv-bulgaria-europes-_b_3578486.html), and the pearl of Thrace.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

99% Invisible is one of my favorite podcasts. The one he did on design of money is just as good if you haven't heard it.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

I'll look for that, so thanks for the heads-up.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

You can't go wrong with any of them. "Billy Possum" is also quite amusing.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Do you know the link or name for the one on money . Thanks !

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure it's this one: http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-colour-of-money-r/

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

I kind of like our flag. Even though it has lettering, it does pretty well on the other principles. It doesn't really need the words, I don't know why they were included. FWIW, it was designed by a 12 year old, back in the 60's, as part of a Soroptimist contest.

(http://s265.photobucket.com/user/policraticus/media/us-nj-lb_1.gif.html)

[telemann.livejournal.com]

The area I'm from is "Hampton Roads (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_Roads)" Virginia (or the Tidewater). It's a statistical area and there's a loose attempt at regional cooperation on transportation etc, it's made up of quite a few cities counties and towns, and this flag was designed in 1998. I was shocked at how good it was. The area is known for tourism, historical interests (Colonial Williamsburg, Yorktown Battlefield where the American Revolutionary War was won, and civil war battles), lots of great seafood, and sport fishing, as well as the military (6 aircraft carriers are based in Norfolk). Farming and cattle are big as well. It's a very diverse area, so designing a good flag could have gone off the rails fast



But on the other hand, my home, the City of Hampton, not so good. Text everywhere, a complicated seal, text around the seal, and two written instances of the founding date as well.



I

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

At first I thought, what's this, a downing bird, drawn by a 1-st grader? :-P