{"id":417,"date":"2017-07-22T11:55:36","date_gmt":"2017-07-22T11:55:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lellobird.com\/?p=417"},"modified":"2017-07-24T23:28:02","modified_gmt":"2017-07-24T23:28:02","slug":"wave-your-flag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lellobird.com\/press\/wave-your-flag\/","title":{"rendered":"Wave Your Flag"},"content":{"rendered":"

Being a one-time Nebraskan and an all-time tinkerer-with-things-to-make-them-better, from logos to household appliances, I was super excited to see that Skillshare is hosting a contest to redesign the Nebraska state flag<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I’ve made and re-made a lot of logos in my day, but had never really given flags much thought until I saw Roman Mars’s TED Talk a couple years ago about city flags<\/a>, where he discusses Ted Kaye’s five basic principles of flag design<\/a>, which really apply to a lot of design situations.<\/p>\n

Kaye’s first rule, “Keep it simple: The flag should be so simple that a child can draw it from memory,” especially resonates with me – I always strive to have logos I design be something you could sketch out with a pen on a napkin and still recognize.<\/p>\n

So I got to thinking about Nebraska – I haven’t been there in 20+ years, but in some ways I think that’s helpful when designing a flag, because it’s easier to distill a place down to its essence when you’re not right in the middle of it.<\/p>\n

\"Sandhills
Sandhills photo by Chris M. Morris<\/a> via Flickr \/ Creative Commons<\/a> (flag outline added by me)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The number one thing I remembered and loved was the sky – wide and blue, crossed with clouds that cast far-reaching shadows across the open land, filled up with storm clouds and once a gathering tornado I wasn’t allowed to watch, being banished to the basement. So I knew right away the top half of my flag would be blue for sky.<\/p>\n

\"Nebraska
Nebraska cornfield photo by Richard Hurd<\/a> via Flickr \/ Creative Commons<\/a> (flag outline added by me)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I think of Nebraska, I also think of fields of yellow – goldenrod dotted with red-winged blackbirds,
\ncorn tassels, prairie grass, the Sandhills. The current Nebraska flag is also blue with a gold\/yellow state seal (like 23 other state flags!), so I liked that these colors refer back to the historic flag.<\/p>\n

\"Nebraska
Nebraska photo by Jodene E<\/a> via Flickr \/ Creative Commons<\/a> (flag outline added by me)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Looking at maps of the state, I was struck by how the Platte River<\/a> makes a graceful swoop across the state, which is almost rectangular, and decided to use that swoop as a distinctive and place-specific way to divide my blue and gold sections. After I went through a few iterations of color and line width, this is my final product:<\/p>\n

\"Proposed<\/p>\n

Having seen other flag re-design missions falter, including Mars’s campaign to revamp San Francisco’s city flag<\/a>, I’m not sure if this one will officially go anywhere (change is hard, I know). But I’m eager to see what other people come up with!<\/p>\n

\"Proposed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Being a one-time Nebraskan and an all-time tinkerer-with-things-to-make-them-better, from logos to household appliances, I was super excited to see that Skillshare is hosting a contest to redesign the Nebraska state flag. I’ve made and re-made a lot of logos in my day, but had never really given flags much thought until I saw Roman Mars’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[107,109,108],"class_list":["post-417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-graphic-design","tag-flag","tag-revamp","tag-vexillology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lellobird.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lellobird.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lellobird.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lellobird.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lellobird.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.lellobird.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":430,"href":"https:\/\/www.lellobird.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417\/revisions\/430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lellobird.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lellobird.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lellobird.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}