The United States has a reasonably clear starting point. That, of course, is coming up in three days. The formation of Canada is a somewhat more complicated affair. “Canada Day,” formerly known as “Dominion Day” or colloquially, “Canada’s Birthday” commemorates the passage of the British North America Act. Passed on 1 July 1867 the act confederated the Province of Canada with New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to form the Dominion of Canada, a largely self-governing component of the British Empire. On that day the Provence of Canada was divided into Ontario and Quebec.
Not the worst cut-and-paste version
After several intermediate steps, Canada became completely sovereign with the passage of the Constitution Act in 1982. For a nice timeline of the development of Canada, check out the Historical Atlas of Canada Online Learning Project.
But, to the vexillological point of it all. Today we’re flying, in honor of our ally to the north on their birthday, A “USA Canadian Friendship Flag.”
Seriously, this is pretty good.
As far as I know, there have been tons of these, all informal. Usually, such things are clumsy cut-and-paste jobs. It’s rare to see the basic design elements of two flags merged into an aesthetic and unified whole. This flag, which CRW-Flags calls the “Starry Maple Leaf in Striped Bars” flag is nice. I don’t need to go into detail; the symbolism is straightforward and it ticks all the boxes to be considered a “Good Flag.” It’s a great flag; I wish I knew the creator so I could give them credit.
It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since my last vexillological post, so much for picking up the pace. Still, Flag Day calls for a special effort!
Mostly this year, we’ve been flying flags I’ve already written about. There was the Maine 1901 flag over the holidays, and then the Flag of the Earth for Earth Day. Until yesterday we were flying the Ally flag for Pride Month. That one didn’t get to fly for long; June is a busy month for flag-related events. Juneteenth is right around the corner.
So, today, for Flag Day, we’re flying the Arizona State Flag for the first time. That gives us an opportunity for another installment of our series on State Flags.
Arizona was one of the first flags I intended to write about in this series. I was reminded of this recently when the Facebook group U.S. State Flags – Current, Historical, and Proposed had an extensive conversation about the Arizona flag’s design.
The Arizona flag depicts a copper-colored star representing a setting sun and, by extension, Arizona’s status as a western state within the US. The upper half of the flag shows thirteen rays, alternating red and weld-yellow honoring the original thirteen states of the US. The lower half of the flag is Liberty Blue. The red and blue colors on the flag match those on the US flag. The copper of the star honors Arizona’s position as the largest producer of copper in the United States.
You might notice that this is a lovely flag. It embodies all 5 of the North American Vexillological Association’s five principles of good flag design. In fact, NAVA chose it as the sixth-best flag from the continent in a 2001 poll. So why wasn’t it included in our first entry which encompasses the nine best state flags?
Recall, In our first installment, we decided to divide the US state flags into four categories:
Flags that need no changes,
Flags that only need very slight changes,
Flags that have well-established, aesthetic alternatives, and
Flags that require significant changes.
Arizona is our first flag in category two, it’s nearly perfect, but there’s one thing to fix. The flag needs more contrast and, as evidenced by this road sign I suspect that someone in the Arizona Department of Transportation thinks so too.
So, here’s my tweak and I make no claims of originality; it’s a straightforward adaptation and many others have hit on the same or similar ideas. For all I can remember, that road sign might have been my inspiration.
To get the needed contrast, we take a different color from the Stars and Stripes and make the star white. That though, takes away the most Arizona-specific color from the flag and thus we change the red stripes to copper. That’s it. We get a flag that’s a near equivalent to the current version with two colors and a five-pointed star from the national flag, thirteen rays to represent the thirteen original colonies and the color copper to symbolise, well, copper. All the symbolism remains intact.
My first version is on the left, above. That’s a nice flag and there is plenty of contrast; the weld-yellow is rich enough that the white star doesn’t fade into the background. The copper and gold rays feel more evocative of sunlight to me. Alan Hardy of the State Flags Facebook group suggested swapping the red and yellow rays so I tried this with that design as well, on the right. That’s nice too; I’m not sure which I like better.
Also, if you’re wondering, this was the winner of the Redesign Study on Facebook. That was an interesting flag study to follow. Usually studies work on terrible, awful, no good, very bad flags and the suggestions are all over the place. This one though started with a near perfect flag. The proposals showed that as most, like mine were minor variations on an excellent theme.
“Juneteenth,” or “America’s second independence day,” commemorates 19 June 1865, the day at the end of the Civil War when the last slaves in the United States learned that they were free in a proclamation from General Gordon Granger in Galveston, Texas.
He wrote, in part:
“The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired laborer.”
This year we’ve upgraded to a version of the Juneteenth flag without the date integrated into the design, an objectively better design. You can read more about Juneteenth and its flag and see the version of the flag that includes the date in our post from last year.
Happy Juneteenth! We’re flying the Juneteenth flag for the second time and I’m happy to report that this year Elmira College has designated the day as an official college holiday.
“Juneteenth,” also known as “America’s second independence day,” is a recognized holiday in all 50 states since South Dakota recognized it this February. It’s an official state holiday in 24 states and the District of Columbia. It commemorates the end of slavery in the US after the Civil War.
The name “Juneteenth” is a contraction of “June nineteenth” or a “portmanteau” if you want to be all fancy about it. It’s been a national holiday since President Biden signed the “Juneteenth National Independence Day Act” into law on 17 June 2021. That was long overdue; we should be celebrating the moments when we actually got closer to the ideals the US is supposed to represent.
Some History
President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and it took effect on 1 January 1863. It proclaims that “all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” This changed the character of the war, transforming it from a conflict that could be perceived as an internecine squabble to a quest to expand basic human rights, Of course, it wasn’t that simple. But it meant that the tide of freedom advanced as the Union gained territory.
The Army of the Trans-Mississippi was the last major Confederate force to surrender. On 19 June 1865, when General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas to take command of the Army forces there, one of his first actions was to issue General Order 3, which informed the citizens of Texas that slavery there was ended. It read in part:
“The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired laborer.”
Celebrations erupted as Granger’s men traveled forth announcing the order. A few months later, slavery finally ended throughout the US on 18 December 1865 when the 13th Amendment officially became part of the Constitution. One year after General Order 3, the first commemoration took place in Galveston as “Jubilee Day.” That became an annual tradition.
The Flag and its Symbolism
The Juneteenth flag is stunning! it was originally designed by Ben Haith in 1997 and refined by graphic designer Lisa Jeanne Graf. The symbolism of the flag is profound.
The colors are an intentional callback to the American flag emphasizing that the people freed that day and their descendants were, are, and remain Americans.
The central five-pointed star not only represents the freedom of African-Americans in all 50 states but also symbolizes Texas, the Lone Star State, where the celebration originated.
The burst that surrounds the star is a nova, a new star that represents a new freedom, a new people, and a new beginning for African Americans.
Finally, the arc depicts the horizon; a new horizon representing the promise and opportunities that lie ahead.
We’ve settled into the new house enough that we’ve finally installed the flagpole. That was a non-trivial project; there’s nothing like a simple task to remind you of your total lack of aptitude for all things handy. This is the first time we’ve lived in the City of Elmira; we’ve lived in Horseheads and Southport and Newfield, but not within the city itself. To mark the occasion, the first flag that we’re flying from our new home is a proposed flag for the City that was designed by Alex Chichester. Last month, I unboxed the very flag that we’re flying and provided links to Alex’s story, about the flag, why he designed it and some of the community’s response to the flag. You can find all of that here.
The current city flag can be seen to the right and it’s nice enough. I asked about purchasing a copy of this flag from the city and I may yet buy one, but to be honest, it’s somewhat bland. The seal is a standard, city seal, but it’s the sort of seal that’s designed for the printed page. It works best on letterhead or in a book where you can look at it carefully and appreciate all of the detail.
Today, I thought I’d look at the proposed flag, which I’m inclined to call the Chichester Flag through the lens of the North American Vexillological Association’s five principles for good flag design as delineated in Good Flag, Bad Flag. Alex’s design is an objectively good flag. Here we go!
Principle 1. KEEP IT SIMPLE: The Flag should be so simple that a child can draw it from memory.
Here the Chichester Flag shines. The basic design a purple background with a blue horizontal band across the center. Many flags have shared this basic design, which could also be described as three horizontal stripes in two colors. Latvia, Austria, and Cambodia among others, share this basic design. The two joined gold rings as well as the choice of colors make the flag stand out as distinct from the other flags with similar designs. Simplicity is important and it’s no coincidence that NAVA lists this principle first as flags are meant to be seen from a distance and to either drape or to move in the wind. The Confederate States of America had three national flags in its four years of existence because the first two were easily confused with other flags.
A few weeks ago, while I was driving, I encountered a good illustration of this principle as the car in front of me had a small Canadian Flag sticker on its rear window and it was recognizable as a Canadian Flag even when it was many car lengths ahead of us. You can see this in the leftmost picture below. I pasted the official Elmira flag (middle) and the proposed flag (right) into the same photo and the difference is evident. The proposed flag is recognizable while the official flag could be many other things at this distance, such as the flag of Anchorage, Alaska or Honolulu, Hawaii.
Principle 2. USE MEANINGFUL SYMBOLISM: The flag’s images, colors, or patterns should relate to what it symbolizes.
The Chichester Flag has nice clear symbolism. The blue band represents the Chemung river which runs through the city. This is apt; the original settlement in the area was founded at the meeting of the Chemung River and the Newtown Creek. It was the completion of the Chemung Canal that connected the Chemung River to Seneca Lake and ultimately to the Erie Canal System. This allowed Elmira to become a regional center of manufacturing and shipping. There is little doubt that the Chemung River had a profound influence on the city and the community.
The two golden interlocking rings represent the uniting of the city’s north, south, east and west sides into a single community. This works both figuratively and concretely as the four sections of the rings that cross the blue band can be seen to represent the four driving bridges that cross the river within the city.
The colors of the flag are also significant. The Elmira College colors are purple and gold and those colors are ubiquitous on campus. The college, which sits in the heart of the city was founded in 1855, nine years before the city was incorporated from the village and part of the town of the same name. The new flag’s designer, Alex said, “I personally identify the city with the color purple,… It’s probably a lot to do with Elmira College. Also, there’s purple and golden wildflowers all over town.”
The wildflower rationale is frequently echoed in stories about why the college chose purple and gold as their school colors, although those stories usually invoke irises, the school flower. The other reason the college usually shares as an inspiration for their choice of colors is that purple and gold were among the colors of the Women’s Suffrage Movement (you can read a bit more about that here). This reason might be even more salient. Elmira had significant links to the women’s movement and this includes the college itself, which was the first college in the U. S. to offer degrees to women that were equivalent to those that were being offered to men.
Elmira also played an important role in the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad. When we consider this along with the ties to the women’s movement, the fact that the purple portion of the flag evokes an equals sign (=), the flag elicits all of this history.
Principle 3. USE 2 TO 3 BASIC COLORS: Limit the number of colors on the flag to three, which contrast well and come from the standard color set.
There’s very little that needs to be said here; the flag contains three colors that contrast nicely. A useful measure of this is whether the flag remains recognizable and attractive when rendered in grayscale. It does. The black and white version remains both striking and distinctive.
As an interesting side note, the NAVA manual defines the basic color set as “red, blue, green, black, yellow and white” and states that other colors “are seldom needed in a good design.” At least part of the reason is that “flag fabric comes in a relatively limited number of colors.” I wonder if this is still true; it seems to me that printed flags have become more common and easily obtained in the 14 years since the manual was written. Either way, the connections between Elmira and the color purple are significant enough to warrant its use.
Principle 4. NO LETTERING OR SEALS: Never use writing of any kind or an organization’s seal.
This is strongly related to the “keep it simple” principle. Seals are difficult to see at a distance and text on printed flags appears reversed on the back, making it difficult to read. To make the text readable on both sides dramatically increases the cost of the flag. The Chichester flag has neither text nor a seal.
Principle 5. BE DISTINCTIVE OR BE RELATED: Avoid duplicating other flags, but use similarities to show connections.
The Chichester flag can claim both of these characteristics. The color choices and the interlocking rings set the flag apart from other flags with similar designs making it distinctive while it shares some similarities to related flags. The similarities to the Elmira College flag, shown above, are evident. The gold rings can also be seen as an homage to the current Elmira flag as they share its color and evoke its main motif, the circular seal. In a nice coincidence, the purple color refers back to the flag of the Iroquois Confederacy, who inhabited this area of North America before the arrival of European settlers.
Final Words:
This was an enjoyable project and a nice inaugural flag for our new home. I’d never ordered a custom flag before, but the process was easy and straightforward. It’s easy enough that I will probably order more custom flags in the future, when I’m interested in flying something that isn’t easily available.
It is also been exciting to be able to fly a flag that, as far as I know, has never been flown before. That’s been a great deal of fun and I want to thank Alex for allowing me to use his design.
And speaking of Alex, I hope that his campaign to have his flag become the official flag of the City of Elmira is successful. It’s a beautiful flag and his arguments about using the flag to invigorate the community and brand the city deserve careful consideration. If you’re interested in such things, please check out his videos. I think you’ll find them compelling.
In a couple of weeks, we’ll be moving into the city of Elmira. We’ve lived in the area for some time, but never actually in Elmira itself. To mark the occasion, we wanted an appropriate flag to fly for the first month or so in our new home.
Meanwhile, a young man named Alex Chichester has designed a new flag for the city and he’s been promoting it. It’s a lovely design and it deserves a chance to become our new flag. We decided to fly his flag when we moved to the city. I contacted Alex and he graciously allowed me to have a copy made. After speaking with a number of nice people, I decided to work with a company called Asley who produced a lot of the flags we’ve flown at home for the last year or so. The new flag finally arrived yesterday. Here’s our first look at the finished product.
I’ll have more to say when I start flying the flag, but if you’re interested, here are two of Alex’s videos regarding his flag. He promotes this better than I can.
And if this has piqued your interest in flags and vexillology, here’s an excellent TED Talk on city flags and flag design.
Today is 20 July 2019; fifty years to the day that humans first set foot on another celestial body marking the culmination of the Space Race and one of humanity’s greatest technological achievements.
To commemorate the occasion, we’re flying a flag featuring the NASA Insignia, a streamlined version of the NASA seal. Other than the the fact that it contains text, the insignia is a perfect centerpiece for a flag. It’s striking without being too busy and it’s easy to sketch. It also has nice, clear symbolism.
From the NASA website:
The round red, white and blue insignia, nicknamed the “meatball,” was designed by employee James Modarelli in 1959, NASA’s second year. The design incorporates references to different aspects of the mission of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The round shape of the insignia represents a planet. The stars represent space. The red v-shaped vector represents aeronautics. The circular orbit around the agency’s name represents space travel.
We spent a decent amount of time deciding which flag to fly for the occasion. Our first thought was the Earth Day flag, and then an Earth Day flag with a stylized crescent moon and the southern cross, but neither of those seemed to feature the Moon clearly enough. There were other options, but the NASA flag seemed most appropriate.
The first two options above could be deemed “photograph flags” and, for my purposes, flying a flag based on a photograph seems fine. If any of the images below were available in flag form, we might have chosen it. Perhaps I’ll order one of these custom made for the 51st anniversary.
The flag played a prominent role in the Lunar Landing. One of the more dramatic moments was the raising of the flag, which I can clearly remember seeing on the teevee. I explicitly recall being puzzled about the flag’s behavior. It seemed to snap out with the top sticking straight out from the pole. I was only five, but this seemed strange. I’d seen flags before and they certainly didn’t do this. It must be something strange about space, I thought. Or the Moon. Or something else. Here’s the news footage.
Astronauts Plant the American Flag on the Moon.
Turns out the flag had its own “frame.” Five year old me missed that. If you have any doubts about the significance of the flag in this event, let’s turn to Arthur C. Clarke’s July 20, 2019: Life in the 21st Century. Published in 1986, this book is a collection of Clarke’s speculations about the state of life and technology on this very day. The first chapter is a fictional letter, written by Clarke himself, from his home in Clavius City, Luna on the book’s titular date. It begins thusly.
It doesn’t seem like fifty years – but I cannot be sure which memories are false and which are real. Present and past are inextricably entangled. The monitor screen has just shown the ceremony at Tranquility Base, culminating with the third hoisting of the American flag. It was blown down, of course, by the blast of the Eagle’s ascent stage, and lay there on the trampled Moon soil for thirty-six years until the Apollo Historical Committee reerected it. Then the big quake of 2009 knocked it down again; this time, we’re assured, it would take a direct hit by a fair-sized meteor to lower it…
Arthur C. Clarke’s July 20, 2019: Life in the 21st Century
It’s a romantic image; historical societies reerecting and preserving the flag for future generations to see and enjoy, but sadly, that may never come to pass. The condition of the flags on the moon is a subject of speculation. The conditions are harsh. The surface is bombarded with UV radiation without the protection we receive from Earth’s atmosphere and the temperature ranges from -280 to +240 degrees Fahrenheit. Some of the flags could have disintegrated entirely. At a minimum, the flags must be so sun bleached that they are now completely white. At least as recently as 2012, however, there was evidence that the flags of Apollo 12, 16 and 17 were still standing. You can read about the condition of the flags in the links below.
References:
Clarke, A. C., July 20, 2019: Life in the 21st Century, Macmillan, 1986
We’re flying a new flag this morning; specifically the flag of the United Federation of Planets. It flew for a day a few weeks ago, but it was wet and windy and the flag kept getting tangled around the pole so I decided to take it down for a bit.
In the meantime, we purchased a Valley Forge Tangle-Free Aluminum Pole (not pictured above) from the Horseheads Do It Center. It’s working beautifully so far. The flag is affixed directly to the pole through the grommets and the entire top section of the pole rotates freely. The weight of the flag itself keeps it from wrapping around the pole.
I like this flag, however, it puts me in mind of a lot of state flags, most of which are pretty dreadful. I, therefore, thought I’d look at it in terms of the North American Vexillological Association’s criteria for evaluating/creating flags.
NAVA’s five criteria for creating a good flag were first codified in 2001 when they conducted a survey to choose the best and worst flags on the continent. These are:
The design of the flag should be simple enough that a child could draw it from memory.
It should use clear and understandable symbolism.
The flag should use common colors; probably no more than four different ones.
Both text and seals should be avoided.
Finally, the flag should be unique as it represents a distinct entity. It can however, show similarities to other flags, to show connections.
A nice example of the last criterion is the similarities between the flags of Ohio and the United States. The flags are distinct but the common elements make it clear that the US and Ohio are closely related.
We could segue into a long discussion of state and province flags, but we’ll save that for another day. The existing state flag closest to the bottom of the NAVA survey was Nebraska.
The dubious distinction for last place was given to Georgia, but that flag was changed in 2003. Meanwhile, my favorite state flag has to be Alaska; simple and elegant with clear symbolism. It’s a classic.
The UFP flag fares pretty well according to the NAVA standards. The design is simple and clean. The colors, blue and white are classic and attractive. The weakest element of the flag is the text. Like the conventional wisdom assumes, it’s difficult to read as the flag waves in the wind, especially as the text is backward on one side of the flag. It’s also an odd choice; the Federation contained over 150 member worlds at one point, each of which probability had its own language. I think it remains an odd choice even though English had evolved into “Federation Standard.”
To think about the symbolism, it makes sense to look back to the obvious inspiration for the UFP flag, the Flag of the United Nations. The blue color was chosen in contrast to “red, the war color.” The world map represents all the people of the world. The map projection is surrounded by olive branches, a common metaphor for peace.
The similarities to the UFP flag are striking and the symbolism transfers in a straightforward manner. The branches are similar, though may not be of terrestrial origin. The galactic map with the density of the stars in an off-center diagonal line is evocative of a section of one of the spiral arms of the galaxy.
Earth and presumably most of the other member worlds of the Federation are located in the Orion Spur, a minor arm of the Milky Way, which exists between the Perseus and Sagittarius Arms of the galaxy. In-universe and otherwise, the similarities between the UFP flag and the UN flag make sense since one organization is clearly an inspiration for the other. If the UN still existed in the 23rd Century, the two flags might be too similar to be flown together, but I suspect the UN flag has been supplanted by a “United Earth” flag.
One place where the symbolism of the UFP flag seems lacking is that there are three stars in the galactic map that are stylized as four-pointed stars rather than circles. These stand out and in a standard flag, these might represent the founding worlds of the Federation. Unfortunately, there are four; Earth, Vulcan, Andor, and Tellar Prime. This is not surprising. The UFP flag was designed long before the founding worlds were codified in “These are the Voyages…” the series finale of Star Trek: Enterprise. I might be inclined to add a fourth four-pointed star.
![[Iroquois Confederacy flag]](https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/x/xa-iroqu.gif)
Comics, the Universe, and Everything 
