New Zealand [II]

New Zealand is going to hold a referendum about a flag change. NZ Government is listing all the designs submitted so far. Looking there, I got in the mood of submitting my own design.













I thought about submitting the flag of my original post about NZ, but similars design were already submitted. So I made this design:













The Southern Cross is were it was supposed to be. I decided to use a straight silver fern instead of more usual, curved fern. Due to laziness, I used the same fern from a (beautiful, indeed) design by James Bowman, from Auckland:













I think the silver fern and Southern Cross are more neutral than Union Jack or Tino rangatiratanga (main Maori flag). The silver fern could be, obviously, of a motif different from Bowman's.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
Not submitted it yet, but may do it next days.

South Region (Brazil)

The Southern Brazil is remarkable for having the biggest (but still not relevant) separatist movement in Brazil. Those separatists claim supposed cultural, geographic and demographic particularities.

The flag most associated with Southern Brazil is that of separatist movement "O Sul é Meu País":

Three stars for the three states that compose the region: Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul. This flag is a bit boring, and rejected by other separatist movements.

A more recent flag is the following:

I disagree that the araucária (Araucaria angustifolia) is, inside Brazil, a symbol exclusive to the South Region, as there are many counter-examples. I consider a more stylized tree a better solution, too.

Curiously, my proposal ended looking a bit like above:

I designed it on a way that it be used inside or outside a secessionist context. The blue represents the Atlantic Ocean that bathes the three states. Green stands for the wealth of the forests and camps (for the secessionists, hope for freedom?). The stars are three in reference to the three states, and red due to the history of fights of its people.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
I tried to make this post the most apolitical I could... I tried.

Yöruk people

Yöruk is a nomadic Turkic people originally living in Anatolia and Taurus Mountains, but also present in Iran and the Balkans. In Turkish, their name mean "walkers".

Internet is a really big place, and I found a Yöruk-descendant talking about the inexistence of a flag for thr people. So I decided to make my own suggestions.

My first proposal:


The crescent and star on blue background remarks the flag of Turkic Council. The flag itself is structured to remark a landscape, with the camel representing travelling and endurance, characteristics of the nomadic people.

One local said me that, although Wikipedia tells that camels are their traditional means of transportation, most Yöruk families don't have their camels.

So, among the listed animals, I chose the horse, that, in this context, may be the better substitution:


I don't know much about Yöruk, but I like the looks of the flag.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
Sorry for delay, I'm having a busy week!

The children of Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (United Kingdom)

I'm a bit late here. Many fellows have published their imaginative exercises on the coats of arms for the sons of William and Catherine, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, respectively.

I have to say it's just a futurology exercise — and a funny one! Usually, the members of British royal family just gain arms after their eighteenth birthdays. At the time her youngest great-granddaughter will be completing 18 years, Queen Elizabeth II would be 107 years old, so I'm working on the scenario where now-prince Charles would already be king, and current practices in British royal heraldry wouldn't have changed.

The marital coat of arms of the parents of George and Charlotte:


If Prince Charles was the king, Prince William would be the heir apparent, therefore using a white label of three points. As heir apparent's heir apparent, George would use the arms of his father with some difference. William now uses the scallop shell from his mother's family (Spencer) coat of arms, so George could use the acorn from his mother's family (Middleton) coat of arms.

Prince Harry, the second son of Charles, now use a label of five points, so could use Charlotte in this futurology scenario.

The big question is what should be the color of the acorn. In my first take, I picked a reference from Middleton's own coat of arms. The labels for George and Charlotte, respectively:


Although it could have a nice contrast with royal quarterings, in both regular and Scottish forms, I'm not totally satisfied with the result.

I'm not a fan of totally red or blue acorns, for its unnatural and aspect, neither totally gold acorns, that lack constrast with the white background, so my suggestion are naturalistic acorns:


Comments are welcome.
Do you have a different opinion on this matter? Leave your comments, please!

Cabinda (Angola)

Cabinda is a province that happens to be an Angolan pene-exclave (three fourths foreign lands, one fourth the sea). It's an area of conflict between Angolan government and secessionists, that believe that, in the terms of the Treaty of Simulambuco and other documents, although de facto administered as part of Angola it was a de jure separate subject to Portuguese republic before Angolan independence.

As far as I know, there isn't a Cabinda flag. Those flags one can find actually pertain to certain to those secessionist movement. So I decided to create a flag that represents Cabinda uniqueness, but as neutral as I could.

My inspiration for this flag is the Monument of Simulambuco, located where the treaty of same name, incorporating Cabinda as a then-Portuguese Crown's protectorate.


The three spears in front of it represent the kingdoms of Kakongo, Loango, and N'Goyo. I incorpotated them in the flag, but in a different way:


The blue color represents the Atlantic Ocean. The design could be mirrored, if one prefer:


I like the visual experiment with the arrows. The result is surely striking.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
Sorry for the delay, again.

Vancouver Island (BC, Canada)

When Vancouver Island was granted a flag, in 1865, it was still an independent colony. The next year, though, it joined British Columbia, now part of Canada, so there's doubts that flag ever flew those times.

That flag, however, is been revived by many locals as an unofficial flag. This is how it looks:


It's a bunch of things happening there. The badge is based in then-colony's seal:trident for the sea surrounding the island, caduceus for commerce, pine cone for the forests and beaver for fur trade. I don't think the blue ensign-look is the ideal for current usage.

Here's my first attempt:


I kept the main elements of the flag. Caduceus and tridents, here. The green stands for the forests. The beaver is on canton because, apart from the fur trade, it's also representing the Hudson's Bay Company, the true proprietors of former colony.

My second attempt is more conservative:


Nothing completely original, but this flag is way more ellegant and easier to be manufactured.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
My real sorry for post's delay. It's been a busy week.

Organization of American States

The Organization of American States (OAS or OEA) is an international organization consisting in all independent countries of the Americas (Cuba is not active member).

Its flag is similar to the following:


It contains OAS' logo (pieces of the flags of the member states in a flagpole) in a blue background. I consider this design cluttered and lazy.

I came up with a proposal of my own, just to discover that Flags Forum's user Smertios had a similar idea much earlier:


I think the idea of an stylized map is clever, but I'm not happy with its (possibly unintentional) similarity with logo of FTAA, a proposed pan-American (except Cuba) free-trade area.

My actual design, developed independently, is the following:


I kept the basic white-circle-on-blue design, but thought the circle like a globe. I painted the continent red because it's a color widely associated with American continent e.g. the former rationale for Olympic red ring.

Comments are welcome.
I tried to make this post the most apolitical.