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.

Flags of Pernambuco towns: Part I

A Brazilian friend requested flags for cities of Pernambuco state. I've once re-created the flag of its capital, Recife (post here; a candidate for a re-fix, by the way). Today I present the flag of his home city, Nazaré da Mata, and Carpina.

This is the current flag of Nazaré da Mata:

















I've thought about keeping the green and white triband, but my final design, after some pencil-on-sketchbook, removed it, but has still some similarity with current flag.

















The elements of the flag refer to tourist attractions: the golden obelisk; the sugarcane, referring to historical sugar mills and plantations; the standard, used in a local dance called maracatu.

This is the current flag of Carpina:















The first quarter of coat of arms represent the fact that the city had two former names. The second and third quarters represent the bravery and the Christian faith of founding fathers, respectively; the fourth quarters is punning with city's name, related to carpentry.

My first flag proposal contains an abstract saw:

















My second proposal adds the second quarter of coat of arms as a flag canton, but just because one of two city's former name was Floresta dos Leões ("Lions' Forest") .

















My third proposal is less orthodox, adding green color due to "forest" part of former name.


















With some luck, we'll have a part two and many more!

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
Keep an eye in this series: I promise some great designs.

Greenwich (London, UK)

From last August 31st to September 4th, the 26th International Congress of Vexillology happened in Sydney, Australia. The next ICV will happen in 2017, in London, more specifically in the University of Greenwich and the Old Royal Naval College, in the royal borough of Greenwich. So I think designing a flag for Greenwich would be welcome.

My inspiration for this design was the 1903-1965 coat of arms, before the annexation of Woolwich borough (for this specific purpose, I don't think that references to Woolwich are needed). The first attempt was a simplified version of the banner of arms (i.e. with less stars):

The central stripe is tinier in reference to Prime Meridian, also referred by the hourglass. The stars represent the Royal Observatory.

For my second attempt, I removed one more star, to make the flag look more balanced:

I like the result. But I'm not sure if it's better than with reversed colors:

I have a feeling that this version looks more "natural", but less unique.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.

Which of the three is your favorite proposal for Greenwich flag?

Nubia (Egypt / Sudan)

The Nubia region is currently divided between Egypt and Sudan. I've saw a Facebook post about the nonexistence of a flag for Nubian people (even though proposals exist). So this is my take.

I've designed the following design:


A white crescent on blue background is reported as a symbol of Nubia in European medieval maps. The blue color can also stand for the Nile, while the crescent can represent the predominantly Muslim population. I've added a golden-yellow stripe on fly, representing the desert, but also the old glories e.g. Kush.

I'm not a specialist in Nubia, so I can only hope that my vision is correct. As a design, I like it very much.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
My computer is starting to work again. So posting frequence may re-normalize.