Friday, June 22, 2018

US Municipal Flags – Intro

Would you believe there’s actually a TED talk out there on city and town flags? It’s by a guy named Roman Mars. He’s a graphic designer, and that’s definitely reflected in his observations. He’s raises a good point though – there’s a lot of crappy design out there.

That’s the flag of Chicago, by the way

Mars also references Ted Kaye, a real, honest-to-goodness vexilloligist. In particular, he cites Kaye’s five rules to designing a great flag:
  • Keep it simple
  • Use meaningful symbolism
  • Use two to three basic colors
  • No lettering or seals of any kind
  • Be distinctive

Great thoughts, but definitely more of a challenge with municipal flags. I think these are fine for countries, but when there are thousands of cities, town, boroughs, and municipalities, it’s much harder to do, especially for those last two. 

Ted Kaye

I’ll also be referring to a publication of the National American Vexillological Association, the 2004 American City Flags Survey, written by none other than … Ted Kaye. It ranks the flags of the country’s 150 biggest cities. I don’t always agree with them, but it’s a great resource (and a great organization).

Of course they have their own flag

What I’ll be doing in my next 10 posts are to cover each state in turn. In particular, I’ll see if I can’t find the best and the worst they have to offer. I might also be tempted to redesign some of the latter. (Don’t worry, though, I won’t get too crazy. I’ve tried to keep what I’ve come up with fairly close to the original. Heck, maybe some of these folks might even adopt some of these, you know?)

We’ll start you out with Alabama thru California. Tune back next week.


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