Monday, March 19, 2012

New Flag for Wisconsin

Wisconsin's flag, ugh:


I don't have any criticism for this flag that I haven't used for all the other seal and blue flags.  There is just too much going on, not to mention the huge "WISCONSIN" and "1848."

When I usually try to fix a flag like this, and I don't have any brilliant ideas, I turn to the city flags in that state.  Some American cities have truly amazing flags.  There are a lot of seal on random-background-color ones as well, but maybe because fewer people have a hand in the design (must be easier to get a flag idea through a city council than through a state legislature) or because there are so many city flags it is statistically more likely that some of them will be good, there are some great designs out there.  For Wisconsin, I started by checking out the flag of the largest city, Milwaukee:


Hmm, perhaps I spoke too soon.  It certainly is more interesting than the state flag, but it is just as busy, if not more so.  The yellow on blue looks good, sort of reminds me of the flag of Kazakhstan.  The next largest city in Wisconsin is Madison, the state capital, and a place that has better flag sense than it's larger counterpart:


I'm not exactly sure why they're using the same Native American sun symbol that New Mexico uses on it's flag, but it looks really good.  To make it appeal to all of Wisconsin, I just made a slight tweak:


I flipped the orientation, mostly just for the heck of it, and I changed the lower triangle to green.  But I didn't use just any green, I chose the exact shade used by the Green Bay Packers.  If there is a team that epitomizes it's state better than the Packers, I'd be surprised (maybe the Red Sox).  This provides a fifth color to the flag (blue, yellow, white, black, green) while keeping it simple, as well as providing a nod to contemporary Wisconsin. 

8 comments:

  1. It's great! The only change I'd do, and a really little one, was change the black to Packers green, because they're two really similar colors (sometimes green is lighter). But it's already excellent!

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    Replies
    1. Good idea, a small change and it cuts down on the colors needed.

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  2. I would take a look at the city of Beloit for ideas too.

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    Replies
    1. Beloit's flag was interesting, but I couldn't find a way to make it work for the whole state. I really liked the waterwheel/sunburst design though, and may use it in later flags.

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  3. The symbol on Madison's flag is the Capitol building, and its location on the Madison Isthmus which goes from southwest to northeast, just like the white stripe. The light blue represents 2 of the lakes in Madison, Mendota to the north of the Isthmus and Monona to the South. Therefor butchering Madison's flag to make it Wisconsin's makes absolutely no sense.

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