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?

My "mon"

Long time followers of my blogs may know I'm fascinated by the aesthetics of mon (Japanese family or individual emblems). I decided to design a mon-like emblem for me.

Unlike flags and "Western" coats of arms, mon don't have fixed colors. Here I'll present them black in transparent background.

I think the ideal starting point would be my coat of arms. But I'd like something that remarked it, not a direct translation.

Looking at some Medieval and Tudor-age armorials, I noticed how the negative area of cross moline (the kind of cross in my coat of arms) resembled four hearts. With that in mind, I designed my first kamon:


Heart-like shapes are present in Japanese mon: examples are the petals of sakura (cherry blossom, five petals each) and katabami (wood sorrel, three petals each).

I improved the previous putting it on an octagon:


Eight is a very meaningful number, specially for a computing geek like me.

I think this look much better than previous attempt. However, I made one final design: make it look like a flower (obviously, in Japanese style), with the hearts being petals.


I think it's a lovely design, and I would surely adopt it, for instance, if I lived in Japan. (As living near the biggest Japanese community outside Japan wasn't enough...)

Your comments and suggestions are mostly welcome.
Sorry for absence. I had some urgencies last weeks.

Bristol (England, United Kingdom)

I've came accross a petition for a new flag of Bristol. Apparently, it's related to Facebook and Twitter accounts. So I became excited about making a design by myself.

Theorically, Bristol council is allowed to fly its banner of arms:

But this banner couldn't be used by Bristolians without authorization. I've become inspired by Bristol's original seal and current badge (diverse from coat of arms, it was used to show allegiance).















Ship and fortified bridge represents the famous Bristol port. The cross fleury is a reference to a compass rose. I think I've simplified enough the complex design to make a good flag, but still keep the elements understandable.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
Sorry for small delay. I've had a commitment.
Access the campaign's Facebook and Twitter for more ideas.
The banner of arms was made by Paul Callan.

Pernambuco (Brazil) [Independent]

Pernambuco is the 7th most populous and the 10th richest state of Brazi. I've been requested to design a set of flags for a hypothetical independent Pernambuco state. But today I'm only showing my solution for national land flag.

This is the current flag of Pernambuco:

















It's based in a flag used during a colonial rebellion:
















In the original flag, the three stars represent three capitanias (similar to a province) that adhered to rebellion: Pernambuco, Paraíba and Ceará. In current flag, the star represents statehood. The rest of symbolism is very obvious: white for peace, blue for sky, sun for energy and brightness, cross for faith, rainbow for plurality.

As I think the reference to statehood is not suitable for an independent country, I designed a new flag, but with links to the historical flag:

















I kept the rest of the symbols. Now without the star, I had to rebalance the flag, so I used the rainbow as a partition line, what would give room for both sun and cross and, as a side effect, fix green-blue contrast issue.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
This flag was made under request. It's not intended as a political statement.

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.

Bethlehem (Palestine)

Bethlehem is a very ancient city located in West Bank. It's known to be place where Jesus Christ was born, as well as David was born and crowned king of Israel, reportedly. Another popular site is Rachel's tomb. As such, Bethlehem is one of most import pilgrimage places in Middle East.

As far as I know, Bethlehem doesn't flag a flag. My first thought was designing a flag including the silver star, inside the Church of the Nativity, that marks the exact place where Jesus is believed to have been born. However, I haven't figured out a way of making a compelling, but still self-evident, flag.

So I looked at city's logo:


I noticed Christmas Star was the perfect element for the flag. The logo also contains a wheat ear, as Bethlehem's comes from Hebrew and Aramaic for "house of bread".

That was my first attempt at completing a flag for Bethlehem:

Star of Bethlehem in night sky, border yellow like wheat... all very simple, but very attractive. I think adding the border was a good idea to make it less boring.

But it wasn't still as good as I wished. So I transformed the border in an orle:

I guess the second proposal is much more effective.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
Sorry for recurring delays. I've acquired a new computer, so I'll try to post more often.

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.