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.

Birmingham (England, UK)

The flag of Birmingham has its use restricted to official use only, so the Birmingham City Council decided to open a contest for choosing a "community flag", for less restricted use.

This is council's flag:


It's a banner of council's arms, whose symbolism can be better explained here:


Analyzing local heraldry, I found that the most used elements was the bend of lozenges. It would finally become the basis for my proposed flag. The city's coat of arms focuses in Birmingham's importance at industry, arts and learning.

So my first idea for a flag was the following, with a gear for industry, a brush for arts and a feather for education:


But I think it wasn't a very effective design, so I replaced brush and feather for the sun, whose symbolism can be better expressed in my rationale. This was my entry in the contest:


I submitted the following rationale:

The flag is inspired by the original coat of arms of De Birmingham family. The gear represents Birmingham's industry. The sun is the source of light, representing city's importance in Arts and Education, as well as its role in Midlands Enlightenment. The golden diamonds also stand for Jewellery Quarter.

Now it's just hope that any good entry win the contest.

Comments are welcome.
Sorry for the unconventional delay. I had to assure the contest was closed and gone through technical problems.

Cupertino (CA, USA)

Cupertino, California is one of the core cities of Silicon Valley, best known as the home town of the headquarters of Apple, Inc (and the "Cuppertino effect", why not?). As such, it has one of best life quality among American small cities.

The flag of Cupertino is, unfortunately, one of those boring cases of logos on a bedsheet. The use of words and dates should be specially avoided in flags.


The logo contains a morion, a kind of helmet here used to (anachronistiscally) represent the Spanish explorers that founded the city. It appears even in earlier version of city's seal.

The city is famous due to Apple, Inc., in turn famous, among other things, to the minimalistic design of its products. And, as a bit of minimalism is always welcome to flag design, here's my take:


This depiction of a morion is present in USA Army heraldry.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
Next week, a special post!

Mumbai (Maharashtra, India)

Mumbai, also known as Bombay, is the most populous city of India, and one of ten most populous cities in the world. It doesn't seem to have a flag — at least, I haven't found any.

So here's my proposal:


The seven stars represent the seven islands that constitute Mumbai. The building is the Gateway of India, the biggest tourist attraction of the city and representing its nickname "gateway of India"; it also appears in current coat of arms. The orange background was chosen due to its location in Maharashtra state, related to former Maratha Empire.

Comments are welcome.
Flags competitions are ont the way. I'll post my submissions here, too!

Alsace-Champagne-Ardenne-Lorraine (France)

France is going to pass through a territorial reorganization, with smaller regions merged into "super-regions". One of them is Alsace-Champagne-Ardenne-Lorraine.

The territory of future super-region is going to comprise the current regions of Alsace, Champagne-Ardenne and Lorraine.

Alsace	Alsace (previous)
Champagne-Ardennes	Lorraine

I don't think it's one of my best works, but it's still worthy to share a proposal I designed:


The four quarters are taken from flags with a diagonal stripe, so I decided to arrange them forming a saltire. They are, respectively: Haut-Rhin, Bas-Rhin (mirrored), Champagne-Ardennes (mirrored) and Lorraine. Haut-Rhin and Bas-Rhin are the two provinces of Alsace, notice how the regional flag is a mix of both.

The result can be a little odd, but not less funny.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
I'll try something more elaborate next week.

Parliament (United Kingdom)

I've read news about many British communities designing local flags in celebration to the 750th anniversary of the first Parliament, called by Simon de Montfort in 1265. I thought "Why not a flag for Parliament?".

This post is inspired by Sammy McKittrick's ideas here and here.

My idea for a flag for the British Parliament is the following:


In the center of the flag, the logo of the Palace of Westminster (headquarters of Parliament), constituted by a portcullis and a crown. Red is the color of House of Lords, while green represents House of Commons.

A variation of this design is the following:


One of these flags could fly, for instance, when Parliament is on session.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
Read more about the Parliament contests for local flags here.