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.

Palmerston North (New Zealand)

Palmerston North is one of New Zealand's biggest cities. However, its flag is far from impressive, being boring and against many vexillological rules:


The eagle is inspired in the family coat of arms of Lord Palmerston, that gives the city its name. The origin of the tower is currently unknown.

Using a banner of arms, maybe removing the bordure, was too easy, to I took it a step further, keeping only the colors and the identifiable symbolism.


Now I think Palmerston North could have the flag it deserves. I made a variant version with a punning palm tree:


I think it breaks a bit of flag's charm, that's simplicity and symmetry. So I made another variant, incorporating the shell, a badge of the palmer (i.e. pilgrim). As can be seen, the golden shell is also present in current crest.


I think options 1 and 3 are beautiful and distinctive and both could be used. Which one do you prefer?
Comments and suggestions are welcome.
Next week, a very polemical flag issue.

27th International Congress of Vexillology

When I designed a flag for London borough of Greenwich, I was looking for designing a flag for ICV 27, that will at University of Greenwich Old Royal Military College at August 2017.

One of my designs for Greenwich:

Then, I designed many doodles mixing this flag with vexillological themes, but none of them was satisfactory. My next idea was using the flag of Flag Institute, organizers of the congress, as a base. This is the charming flag of FI:















So I came up with this design:

The visual references for FI flag are obvious. I took advantage of the triangle that represents the letter V of "vexillology". The tiny red line represents the world-known prime meridian of Greenwich (traced using the Greenwich observatory as reference), where East and West are joined. The globe represents our planet, as the congress will be attended by people from all around the world, without division (the red line doesn't cross the circle).

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
Design an imaginary flag for a ICV is very funny. I invite the fellow vexillologists to have a try.

Valencia (Valencian Community, Spain)

Valencia is the capital and biggest city of Valencian Community and former Kingdom of Valencia. It uses the same, historical flag of Valencian Communtiy, so I thought about a design only for the city.

This is the flag:

















It the senyera of former Crown of Aragon (nine yellow-red horizontal stripes) with a stylized crown, a privilege dating from the second half of 14th century.

My proposal takes the crest from current coat of arms — probably originary from belief that Crown of Aragon's crest contained a bat instead of a wyvern — and puts it on a cairó, a rotated square associated there with civic heraldry. This is the result:
















This crest, being golden and black, is very hard to contrast. In my second attempt, I used a more pan-Catalan color scheme:
















I'm more inclined towards second scheme, but I think Valencian people would be proud of both.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
Which one of designs do you prefer?

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.

Nepal

Nepal is the only non-rectangular surviving national flag. Its oddity gathers legions of fans; I'm not one of them. It's an expensive, non-aerodynamic (what makes it inevitably short-lived) flag, and reproducing it in accordance to construction sheet can be a formidable challenge. Proposals of amendment seems to have happened very recently.

This is Nepalese current flag:


My initial sketch for a Nepalese flag is more than two years older. This is it:


I think that, since all elements are relevant (including the triangles, that, in popular lore, represent the many and notable mountains of the country), I should keep them. I've used the symmetry of flag elements in my favor, arranging the triangles to form a rectangle.

I didn't like the result, because the flag lacked contrast. So I decided to give another try in last days. My first new result was the following:


This flag is, from a vexillological point of view, much more effective. For a minor detail, I've added a border outside the crescent moon.

But it didn't shouted "Nepal!", so I inverted the blue and white diagonals.


This flag may not be as contrasting as the previous, but I think it's more truer to Nepalese history and more similar to current flag.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
I want to know: Do you like current Nepalese flag?

Miskito people (Nicaragua / Honduras)

Miskito people is a Native American people native from Caribbean coast of Nicaragua and south Honduras, historically called "Mosquito Coast" (not related to the insect).

Sparsely inhabitated by Spanish colones, the Mosquito coast was twice in its history a British protectorate. In the second time (1844-1860), this flag was used:

From 1860 until 1894, where the area was finally annexed by Nicaragua (Honduras would only gain its piece in 1960), this flag was flown:

In that flag, the British flag was substituted by a version of Nicaragua flag, but with Miskito royal coat of arms instead. Until today, Miskito people use variations of these flags (you can find more about their flags here).

I imagined a hypothetical flag without British or monarchical symbolism, to avoid misinterpretations. I opted out for Nicaraguan symbolism for its busyness, nor plain stripes, as their are already often used. The result was this:

Eight stripes were common variations of these ten stripes flags. The symbol with a spear, shovel and canoe is used by the Council of Elders, among other Miskito entities. The two stars represent Honduras and Nicaragua, respective to their geographical locations. I think the colour palette represents the jungle and the coast very well.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
So sorry for not posting nothing last week. I had technical issues.