Eupen-St. Vith (Belgium)

Belgium is divided in 10 provinces: five Walloon provinces and five Flemish ones. But there's a proposal to create a 11^th province, with the Germanophone community in Belgium. It's called Eupen-St. Vith, and, since I know, I don't know about a flag proposal. See their symbols below (there's a St. Vith's flag, but I don't know if it's a reliable source, so I put the coat of arms):

There is a flag of the Germanophone community, but how Eupen-St. Vith (or whatever'd be its final name) ought to be a different subject, it's needed another flag. But, however, it's the community flag:

It's a beautiful flag. But we need a new one, as I said. And, what do the modern German and the Belgian flags have in common? They're red, black and gold. It's a start!OK, the origins of current German flag are, basically, recent, but it's already an established design. My final design is this:

The lion is in Belgian coat of arms, Germanophone community's flag and coat of arms, and also in the arms of some municipalities in the proposed province. The lion is in an old-school style, but, if wanted, should be changed by any other, i.e., the lion from Germaophone community.

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Ouidah (Benin)

People might be thinking "Why Ouidah?". The answer is simple: Ouidah (or Ajudá, as the Portuguese named it) is one of most important cities in last 500 years African history. From a Portuguese fort in this location, for centuries, black slaves are transported to the New World. It's not a a good history anyway, but a history that can't, and shouldn't, be forgotten.

The design I conceived to Ouidah is this:

The figure in this flag is the Door of No Return, from where the slaves leaved Africa and, as the name suggests, never returned. The blue is the sea, and was the Portugal national color. The green is the land, and symbolizes Africa (it's a pan-African color) and also both former Dahomey and current Benin. The red fimbriation represents the African bloody that was spilled along the time, so also the past. White's the color of actual door, and represents future. A meaningful flag to a unfortunately mean history...

I wanted to post before, but I was occupied with a flag project that went wrong.
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New Zealand

I would be obvious if I said that New Zealand flag is, from afar, almost identical to Australian flag. Also, I'd be obvious if I said that Union Jack isn't synonym of independence. But it's not so evident if New Zealand should have a new flag. In my opinion: yes, it should.

If you pay attention, it's not a terrible flag, explaining why it survives for so time, but I don't know if it "holds the correct message".

I'll show you my proposal. I'm not saying it's more beautiful than Silver Fern, Fighting Kiwi or anything else, but I think it shows better the New Zealand identity. It's there:

It's obviously a reference to Union Jack. But it also refers to Maori flag, that uses red, black and white. The elements of four cantons are koru (seem also in Koru Flag proposal and Maori flag), another representation from silver fern tree (Cyathea dealbata). Koru also symbolizes regeneration and peace. I like the way this flag shows, at same time, the British and the native influences in New Zealanders formation.

What's your opinion about my proposal? Be free to comment.
What's your favorite New Zealand flag proposal? Tell me.

Virginia (USA)

Promise is promise, even if it isn't actually a promise... I told to Jack Expo, that's planning his Virginia flag, that I could show my point about it.

For first, let me show the current Virginia flag:

It's a cool seal, I admit, but hard to be sewn. The first idea I had to Virginia flag is use a inverted chevron, that forms a letter V, the first letter from Virginia's name.

The colors were a problem. I first thought to use the American colors (blue, red, white), representing the Virginia's early importance in American political organization, but it's identical to NAVA's (North American Vexillological Association) flag, and, even if the colors were inverted, it would cause confusion.

The second alternative was using the colors from official state tartan, the Virginia Quadricentennial Tartan, created at time of Virginia Colony's 400^th Birthday preparations, in 2003. This colors are taken from dogwood, state official flower and tree. This is the tartan:

My first complete design contained a Pocahontas-like figure, representing the native influence, in contrast with the colors from tartan, that represents the British heritage. I changed this color that seems like black to a darker green, representing the dogwood leaves in some seasons.

I don't know if Pocahontas representation could generation any retaliation, so I dropped it. My second proposal is this:

It was good to me, but so I thought: I'm talking a lot about dogwood, so why not used its flower? Goodbye, inverted chevron!

I like this kind of geometrical flags, it seems like a Japanese flag. I'm satisfied with it. Are you, Jack?

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Happy May First! (if you're in  a country it's holiday...)

Brazilian State Series: Epilogue

For almost two months, I dedicated my posts for analyze and modify the Brazilian state flags. From the 26 states and a Federal District, I presented suggestion to nine of them. This frame below is representing the progress: the flags in red rectangles are the modified flags, while the other are current flags I decided to maintain. I also commented a São Paulo proposal, but it's not my idea.

(Suggestion: click on image to see it in real size)

For comparative purposes, see the current flags set. Click here to see all flags on series.

Probably, in future, I'll present other Ceará and Rio Grande do Norte proposals (they're too complex), and something about Espírito Santo and Paraíba flags, but not for while.

I can sometimes, in future, present proposals to other Brazilian entities but not states. By now, I want to present proposals to other places around world. Actually, I worked on the back burner on some flags during this two months, and still have some works older than this blog (despite some of them aren't good sufficient to be published, I think).

I want to know: which is your favorite between all proposals?
I thank all comments and views during these series, they make blogging important to me.

Amazonas (Brazil)

And now, the last flag for Brazilian states series (for a while): Amazonas!

Let's see the current Amazonas flag:

What're the problems with Amazonas flag? First of all, a terrible star arrangement of star. Second, a very unoriginal design — it's obvious the influence of American flag.

At first, I reasonably tried to rearrange the star layout, maintaining the basic idea: 25 stars, representing the 25 cities in state at 1897, one of them, bigger, represents Manaus, the state capital. I decided to use three rows of stars, and the result was this:

The layout was less exotic, but easiest to be reproduced. OK, the stars rearrangement is done, it still seems like the USA flag (probably, more than never). So I decided to choice more meaningful colors, as the current ones wouldn't be missed.

There's an old state flag that used blue and white:

So I made two versions of my proposal, using blue, white and green (this last color symbolizing the state's natural richness). The results are:




The first proposal is highly based in current design, while the second shows better the star. It's personal like, but I prefer the first.

As soon as possible I'll post a epilogue of the Brazil series. Wait!
Comment, follow, share... here and in my new blog. Now I'm presenting my new blog, Flag Review. Visit it!

Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil)

Today I'm talk about my proposals to Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul. I choiced to present this two together because I made the same kind of intervention in the two flags.

Let me start showing you the current Paraná Flag:

Being true, it's not a horrible flag, but, I don't know why, people use to complain about this flag. (There's a curious true story about a deputy that proposed to drop the tobacco branch for apologize smoking habit). What I dislike more in the flag is the "PARANÁ" writing and the length of stripes. I know there's a lot of similar proposals, but mine is this:

The stripes was rearranged, and Souther Cross gained its traditional layot. For me, it's good: simple, original and remarkable.

My second proposal, as I said above, is to Rio Grande do Sul. That's current flag:

The coat of arms is terrible (four flags on the exact same flag?), but it's other subject. This flag is incredibly popular in the state; it was the Farroupilha Republic flag with the Farroupilha (current state, too) coat of arms at center. Differently of Juliana Republic, as I said in an older post, the Farroupilha symbols are very respected in the state (I once heard that children learn Farroupilha anthem in school), so I decided to keep the original design, without the coat of arms, but resizing the stripes. The result is that:

I think it's a little disrespect to state pro-autonomist tradition put a star on it, so I keep it without.

It's the penultimate post in Brazil serie, and I'm promising a good surprise to Amazonas post, the last of all.
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