Buffalo (NY, USA)

Buffalo is the second largest city of New York state, just after NYC. I think Buffalo flag is almost nice, but I think the seal just ruin it:


I think the basic pattern is very interesting, specially for a 1920s flag. The bolts represent the city as "City of Light", due to its early widespread adoption of electric lighting. The seal shows city's harbor — very generic, actually.

After looking a bit for city's symbols, I think I found a winner: buffalo, the animal. Yes, the American bison, not related to African or water buffalos. A bison appears in University at Buffalo's coat of arms as such, for example. Here's the result:


I considered using a brown buffalo, but decided for adopting strictly the original flag scheme. I think the result is amazing, and a much better contender among American best city flags.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
I'm very sorry by absence last week.
The buffalo design is based on "Buffalo Embassy Project", by Mike Wozniak.
By the way, do Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo?

Gatineau (QC, Canada)

Gatineau forms, together with Ottawa and smaller communities, Canada's National Capital Region.

Its current flag is the following:


Until 2002, when it was merged with four other townships, it used the following flag:


Both flags use a stylized "G" and, in some way, represent sustainable development.

My attempt is a mix of both and, hope I, better than both:


The blue part represents clean water. The green part, whose shape may remark leaves in the wind, represents nature; it's also an arrow point towards future. The overall design resembles a "G" just like former flag.

A variant on same theme:


Another variant shows five stars, representing the five merged communities:


Comments and suggestions are welcome.
Sorry for recent absence. I had professional compromises.

Harvard Law School (USA)

Harvard Law School, a college of Harvard University, decided to drop his former coat of arms, because it displayed prominently the family arms of Isaac Royall, the first backers of the college. The issue: Royall was a slaveholder and a slave trader, so the coat of arms was considered "racist".

This is the former coat of arms of the college:


I don't know any replacement proposal, apart from what seems to be a parody and a professor's suggestion to add "Iustitia" ("Justice") below "Veritas" ("Truth"). My proposal is not for total rupture:


I'm defacing Royall's arms with three gouttes de sang ("blood drops"), not forgetting his importance to the school, but denouncing that his wealth was gained in exchange for slave blood.

This way, it gives those black lives the credit for helping build, even though without their will, one of most prestigious law schools in the world.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
I'm an outsider here. Do you think it avoid racist connotations of former coat of arms? Or should Royall's arms be dropped completely?

Clinton County (MI, USA)

These days I spotted the flag of Clinton County, Michigan. It's not the most terrible flag, but it's bland — really bland!

This is my rendition of current flag, based on a photo:

The flag contains a spring of mint, representing peppermint and spearmint growing in the county.

I don't know much about the place, but here's my take:

Instead of using a spring of mint, I decided for the shade known as "mint". As a plain mint flag wouldn't do, I put a deer, that scream "MICHIGAN!" and, considering it appears on county seal, is not the worst choice.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
Sorry for small delay, I'm trying to avoid it.

Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (USA)

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is a NY-NJ interstate compact that administers a large hub of airports, seaports and other facilities.

They use the following flag:
















This design mixes elements from the flags of New York and New Jersey states. It's indeed a curious flag, but they only make sense if those flags never change.


I decided to use geographical references in the flag: buff color for NJ, orange for NY and blue for water borders, including Hudson River, all them arranged more or less according to the map. As a distinctive element, I've put the Statue of Liberty, located near the center of Authority's jurisdiction area, where, like Emma Lazarus wrote, it serves as a "New Colossus" for the harbor.















A curious sidenote: here, the Statue is in buff field and, although part of New York city, the Liberty Island is an enclave inside New Jersey.

I live the resuly, but I think the white circle has not enough contrast with buff background, so I moved it to the center, also enlarging it:















This adds a different bit of symbolism: that Statue of Liberty is more or less in the center of Authority's area.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
If you're interest in flags with a "colossus", look at my proposal for Rhodes.

Southern USA (USA)

A personal opinion of mine is that flags should be a symbol for unite peopl, not divide them. But it can't perfectly happen if the feelings about a flag occupies a vast range, from pride to shame.

Currently, the most used flag to represent Southern USA pride is a modern reimagination of a Confederate battle flag, never really used as a national flag:
















However, series of happenings is making it become more and more politically incorrect. Another flag that surfaced recently is the so-called "Southern Nationalist Flag", but its racist symbolism has no place in a plural South.
















One initiative to re-think Southern flag was made by 70kft, a design studio from Dallas, TX. One think that I liked about it is the imaginary arrow pointed to the South. But its admittedly "quilt" look is not quite effective.













My idea is using the basic 70kft's idea of multiculturalism, represented by crossing red and blue bends. I'll use the saltire, not only because of its familiarity with previous flags but also because "X" is punning of Dixie, as dix is French for 10.
















I didn't like the result that much, so I applied a "fretty" treatment:
















I liked the final result the most.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
I know it's a sensitive issue, but I tried to keep it flag-related. Be civil.

Orlando (FL, USA)

Orlando, Florida is one of main touristic destinations of the world, being known as "Theme Park Capital of the World" for hosting World Disney World Resort, Universal Orlando Resort, SeaWorld, Gatorland and Wet'n'Wild.

Last week I was travelling there (hence my absence from this blog), but I rarely saw city's flag:


I was wondering if a more emblematic flag would help spreading its usage. Orlando has many iconic postcards, like Cinderella Castle and the Universal Globe, but the flag should countain a neutral symbol that could be flown by any Orlando company without embarassment, so I decided for the fountain of Lake Eola Park, also present in current Orlando flag. It's the result:


I kept the white-blue bicolor for being a distinctive background. The blue ring forms the letter "O", the initial of "Orlando". Giving the due credit, the fountain drawing was based in a logo by Frank Rodriguez (from MUDSHOCK).

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
I'm sorry for not posting last week, but I hope that this week's inspiration pays off.

St. John's (NL, Canada)

I've recently read inhabitants of St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada complaining about its boring flag; you can find one example here. St. John's was the first British settlement in America, so it deserves (which doesn't?) something better than a coat of arms in a white cloth.


The coat of arms dates from the 1960s. The Agnus Dei (lamb of God) and the shells refer to John the Baptist, that gives the city its name. The ship refer to the early finding of the region by John Cabot. The crest is too generic.

For my design, I first removed the busy chief and aligned the shells to the lamb:


The flag is made only of red and white cloth, notice the St. George's cross carried by the lamb. I could add a symbol related to Cabot, but since he's also named John, the lamb and the shells are also canting (punning). I could remove the shells, but it would make the flag too generic, in my opinion.

Comments are greatly welcome.
Do you have any suggestions of other boring flags that deserve to be fixed?

Sioux Falls (SD, USA)

This week, I was reviewing some old, unpublished stuff, and I found this design for a flag for Sioux Falls, the largest city of South Dakota. Last year, there was an unofficial contest for choosing city's flag and I made, but didn't submit, a design.

The winner designer, designed by Max Rabkin, is below. You can find this and the other five finalist here.


The zig-zag like are for the waterfalls, that give the city its name. The pink area represents the buildings made of "Sioux quartzite", a local stone with that characteristic color. The sun represents South Dakota's nickname "Sunshine State".

My flag attempt has similar motifs, but it's way more abstract:


The superior vertical in blue and white represents the falls, while the inferior vertical in pink and white represents the Sioux quartzite.

I'm not sure that my design is best than the winner one, but I still think it would fly nicely in a pole.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
A question: of the six finalists, which was your favorite, and why?

Albuquerque (NM, USA)

One flag-related news that trended this week is the proposal of a new Albuquerque, New Mexico flag by a local graphic designer, Gabe Re.

This is the current Albuquerque flag:


The flag is surely (excessively) based in New Mexico's, but much less effective. The lettering doesn't belong to a flag, and the thunderbird, a local symbol, is possibly more stylized than it should.

So this is Gabe Re's proposal:


You can find official rationale here. In summary, the flag is based in natural landscape, with red stripe representing muddy Rio Grande, yellow for the desert and the bottom-right zig-zag forming the mountains. The zig-zag pattern and the turquoise color (from gem) also relates to native art.

It's not a bad flag, but I don't like the blue touching the red, so I made the following redesign:


I think this design remembers more the Spanish flag, while retaining all the basic symbolism from previous flag. I rescued the thunderbird from previous flag, in turquoise color and less stylized.

The new flag has a better color layout, and I don't think it looks any bad.

Comments are welcome.
More about Gabe Re's design here.

British Overseas Territories (United Kingdom)

Let's take a careful look at Gibraltar's flag:

Why is this different from any other British overseas' flag? Because it don't have an Union Jack on it. Now, look at the flag of the other fifteen British overseas territories:

Akrotiri and Dhekelia	Anguilla	Ascension
Bermuda	British Antarctic Territory	British Indian Ocean Territory
British Virgin Islands	Cayman Islands	Falklands Islands
Montserrat	Pitcairn	Saint Helena
South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands	Tristan da Cunha	Turks and Caicos

Quite boring, isn't it? So today I'll present my proposal for the fifteen! Some of the designs are mine, others aren't (when noted).

My design for Akroitiri and Dhekelia is inspired by the Dhekelia Garrison's flag. For difference, I've added the colors of British Ministry of Defence, to show it's a military base.


My proposal for Anguilla is actually a rip-off of Republic of Anguilla (1967-1969) flag i.e. a banner of current arms.


For Ascension, a banner of arms, too. I added a tiny white fimbriation in the green chevron, just to increase visibility:


For Bermuda, I picked the lion and red of current flag (both representing British influence) but put the lion's face on a triangle, a reference to famous Bermuda's triangle.


My British Antarctic Territory flag proposal is based on coat of arms, too. I put the blue stripes on center and made the white background shine.


For British Indian Ocean Territory, I picked the flag of Chagossians (natives) in exile and put the palm tree and crown from current design. Some minor details is that I put the crown crossing the tree and centered in black stripe, for better aesthetics. This is one of my favorite flags in the series.


Also original is my flag for the British Virgin Islands. The lamp refers to Saint Ursula and the 11,00 martyred handmaidens that give the islands its name. The four stars represent the four main islands: Tortola, Virgin Gorda, Anegada and Jost Van Dyke.


My proposal for Cayman Islands is a simplification of current coat of arms; this design, actually, was reportedly once used by independentist movement.


My flag for Falkland Island is freely inspired in the coat of arms. I removed the ship and shifted the flag for the hoist for aesthetic reasons.


The flag of Montserrat represent, basically, the island of Ireland (due to physical similarities and the origin of many settlers) and the cross. So I made the following design:


Another of my favorite design on the series is that of Pitcairn. It's, basically, a rotated and simplified version of the coat of arms.


For Saint Helena, I kept the symbol bird of the territory, but added a cross in red and yellow in reference to Byzantine empress Saint Helena, that, according to tradition, found the True Cross.


I rotated and simplified the coat of arms of South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands. Now, the two wavy stars represent both James Cook and the two island chains (South Georgia and South Sandwich) that gives the territory its name.


The flag of Tristan da Cunha is just the striking banner of arms:


Finally, my proposal for Turks and Caicos. I couldn't satisfactorily harmonize the three charges of its coat of arms, so I used yellow for sand, green for the flora, pink for the shell and the flamingoes and a lobster as lone charge.


Comments and suggestions are welcome.
Sorry for the delay; I hope the long post is enough sorry.