Another New Flag for Nova Scotia

A few months ago, I suggested the following flag as a fix for the province of Nova Scotia:

This was essentially the current provincial flag, I just removed the central shield which featured a lion.  In flags, simplicity is key, but I may have let the pendulum swing too far in this instance.  As I mentioned in the original post, this flag also closely corresponds to the Russian naval ensign, an uncommon flag I'll admit, but there's no reason to use a Russian flag in Canada.  While searching for new ideas, I came across the flag of Cape Breton, the island that makes up the northern part of Nova Scotia:

As I've mentioned before, I'm a sucker for nautical icons on flags, particularly those from the Age of Sail, so this really jumped out at me.  The golden leaf design around the edge is a little distracting, but at least this flag is heading in the right direction.  After a little more searching, I found the flag of Halifax:

This one maintains the St. Andrew's cross of the provincial flag, but adds some more elements and replaces the white with yellow.  I like the bird (a kingfisher?) and ships, but the arrows seem unnecessary.  I decided to use this flag as a template for the whole province, and this was my final product:

I have kept the yellow on the ships, partially because it would have taken forever to change their color using Paint, but mostly because they give a splash of color to the blue and white.  As you can see, I hanged the central "X" to white and removed the arrows, giving the flag as less cluttered look.  I'm not entirely sure if the bird is a provincial symbol or specific to Halifax, but either way I think this version does a better job of representing the province and not being simple for simplicity's sake.

Thanks to Francis for the ideas.

Another New Flag for Montana and New Brunswick

Two more updates this week:

This is my version of Montana's flag, based primarily on the flag of the city of Denver.  The biggest issue was the poor contrast of the silver, which is too light and from a distance would be almost indistinguishable from the white snow caps.  In response, here's a fix:

The silver (really more of a gray) is darker now, and does a much better job of standing out.  Not everybody was a fan of the snow caps either, but I still kinda like them.

And New Brunswick:

All I had done to the original was get rid of the lion that formerly resided in the red stripe.  But now it just looks like something used to be there and it doesn't look natural.  It really should balance out the blue of the waves, rather than dominate it:

It now is better balanced by the blue/white sea, plus the flag is now more elongated, a common trait of Canadian provincial flags.

Thanks to Voron X and Francis for their input.

Another New Flag for Georgia and Maine

Just a couple of quick fixes this week, based on comments I've received.  First, Georgia:

This what I suggested a few months back, replacing the seal on the curent flag with a peach, a simple design and one that resonates with Georgia.  However, it is difficult to differentiate the peach from the background (especially the leaf), so I gave the fruit a thin white border:

A very minor change and one that make the design a little more complicated, but it helps the symbol stand out.

Second, Maine:

This idea wasn't really an idea, merely the hope that Maine would ditch its current flag in favor of the one above, which had been the state's flag about 100 years ago.  In the spirit of offering my own fixes instead of just pulling from history though, I'll alter this one a bit as well.  For one the star represents the north, but by switching it to the other side of the flag, it also can portray Maine's position as the easternmost state.  The green of the tree can also be used to represent the whole state and provide a different background for the flag:

I like this version, but the star now suffers from the same issues as Georgia's peach.  Instead of the white outline though, I'm just going to make the star white as well:

This design is striking and unique while only using two colors and two shapes (and relatively simple ones at that).  I've come to like this design better than the one provided by history.

Thanks to Voron X and Dennis Bolt for their suggestions.

Another New Flag for Delaware

This week I begin a month of retrospection, looking back at some fixes I have suggested and working to improve them.  These new fixes will be based on comments and any better ideas I've had since posting.  I'll start with the state I first attempted to improve, Delaware.  As a quick reminder, here are the current flag of Delaware and my suggestion for making it better:

For my full rational, see the original post, but the bullet points were that the colors were original and worth keeping and that the seal was bad, so I replaced it with a shield with the Swedish flag, because Delaware was formerly a Swedish colony. 

The first thing I need to change is that replacing a seal with a shield may have simplified the design, but it doesn't make for better aesthetics.  The second is the fairly poor contrast between the Swedish blue and the Delawarian (?) blue.  Not a great combo.

Two things remain important to this design and which I will attempt to maintain; the colors of the original flag, which are supposedly taken from the colors of George's Washington's uniform, and the Swedish connection, which I feel deserves to stay, at the very least because it makes a state, which is only really famous for being first, stand out in the crowd.

I decided to try a defaced design, enlarging the Swedish part of the flag but eliminating things like the unnecessary shield.  Here was my first attempt:

This one, in my opinion, is better than my first suggestion.  It has a new background, the buff color shared only with New Jersey, but they're neighbors and it feels like this flag is also saying the importance of Sweden is greater than that of the state.  In case that was confusing, here is the flag I settled on and which I present as my Fix of my Delaware Fix:

This time Sweden is in the background, supporting but otherwise very different from the state Delaware has become.  This flag says something like "We have Sweden in our history, but now we're writing our own history" but hopefully less sappy.  The buff, yellow, and Swedish blue have a nice contrast here and contain a color and design element of the old flag with updates highlighting their unique heritage.  I also altered the Swedish background, choosing not to make the yellow vertical stripe off-center as it is in the actual flag of Sweden.

I also tried both these designs using the Delaware blue instead of the buff, but increasing the space given to both blues did not an attractive flag make.

Thanks to Voron X for the suggestions.