Brief Hiatus

Sorry it has been so long since the last post, and unfortunately it will be a bit longer.  I'm transitioning into a new job and haven't had much time for flags.  To satisfy my "huge" number of readers, I present a couple flags that I think are neat/weird.

Des Moines, Iowa, USA:

A simple flag that uses a shape (the arch) that isn't often seen.  If I can find another place where the bridge imagery would fit, I'll definitely be using this flag as a template.

Fresno, California, USA:

With the exception of the word "Fresno," this is a nice flag.  I particularly like the way the sun and gear balance the design.  The earthy colors are good too.

Voronezh, Russia

I don't know what any of the symbolism on this flag means, but I still really like it.  Plus, I'm a sucker for the Byzantine double-headed eagle.

Tampa, Florida, USA:

You're guess is as good as mine on this one.

New Flag for Haiti

In a recent post over at Create/Recreate - Flags, etc., a blog with a similar purpose to this one and which is currently finishing a critique and improvement of the flags of the Brazilian states, the flag of the state of Rio Grande do Sul was examined:

This flag has the unfortunate attribute of showcasing the state seal, which in turn features the state's flag four times.  I suppose this becomes an infinite regression, since each of those four flags would have the seal on them, which would each have four flags, which each have the seal, etc.  The first thing that came to my mind when I saw this was the flag of Haiti:

As you can see, the coat-of-arms in the center of the flag makes the same mistake Rio Grande do Sul makes, but this time there are six flags instead of four.  Like the old South African flag or the Georgian (US) flag of a few years ago, flag designs which prominently feature flags don't tend to be very successful.

I should reiterate at this point that any critiques I make of the flags of other nations are purely from a design perspective and in no way am I intending to insult or denigrate the ideas those flags may represent for other nations.

The Haitian flag is a nice one overall, and because the coat-of-arms is fairly small proportionally, this flag remains recognizable from a distance.  It is very similar to the flag of Liechtenstein, a problem that was noticed at an early Olympics, but Liechtenstein decided to change their flag to avoid further confusion (they didn't make a big change, just added a crown to the upper-left corner).  The imagery of the coat-of-arms is pretty good, but is also busy with lots of detail.  This is what the coat-of-arms looks like enlarged:

My favorite part of this coat-of-arms is the palm tree in the center, representative of the nation's climate and Caribbean location, which is topped by a Phrygian cap, a symbol (from Ancient Greece) of liberty.  I've mentioned elsewhere how much I love the Phrygian cap as a symbol, but have never seen it utilized successfully on a flag.  It usually shows up on seals as just another detail among many others.  My idea to change the flag was to maintain the tree and cap, but remove the cannons, text, and especially the other flags.  Here is what I came up with:

This flag keeps the red and blue background, as well as the symbolism of the cap and tree.  The palm fronds could be simplified, but I kind of like the little detail that remains.  It reminds me of the flag of South Carolina, which is one of the best American state flags even though the palmetto it features has a fair amount of detail.

Thanks to Leonardo for the inspiration for this post.

One last note on flags that feature flags. I have family in the Tampa Bay area of Florida, a region whose NFL team is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  As team names go, I like this one, particularly since pirates are a big part of Tampa's identity (they have an annual event called the Gasparilla Pirate Festival).  However, the team also has a flag which is flown at local businesses and by fans which looks like this:

The flag comes in a variety of shapes and with different background colors, but the common theme is the picture of a flag being the sole feature of the flag.  I suppose without the image, you wouldn't know the flagpole is a sword, but really Tampa?  That can't be the best you can do.  I've also seen flags with just the skull and crossbones on red, but the flags like the one seen above are very, very common.

New Flag for Nebraska

Back in 2001, the North American Vexillological Association conducted a survey (which I have mentioned on this blog in the past) in which they endeavored to rate the flags of the states, provinces, and territories of the USA and Canada.  New Mexico, Texas, Quebec, Maryland, and Alaska made up the top five best designs, while this week's flag, Nebraska's, came in at number 71, second to last:

"If that flag is second to last, which flag was the worst?" I can hear you asking.  Well, the survey was conducted in 2001 and at that time, Georgia was in the middle of a flag transition and had a odd combination of state seal and all the state's previous flags in one design (see my post New Flag for Georgia for more info).  Since then Georgia's flag as changed and while it still isn't in the top 10 or 20, it is definitely better than last place.  The only conclusion I can draw is that Nebraska now holds the secure spot as being the worst flag in the USA and Canada.

I suppose I should tread lightly in regards to Nebraska's flag, for in doing research for this post I found the official information on the flag provided by the government of the state.  On Nebraska's Secretary of State page, it said "State law says no part of the state flag is to be used as a business advertisement or trademark, and insulting the flag is forbidden."  I have no intentions of trademarking this design, but it is possible I'll be insulting it as we go.

This flag is awful and the vexillology survey got it right. It seems like Nebraska was trying to follow the rule of having few, contrasting colors, but ignored the idea of keeping the imagery simple and concise.  The end result of course is the mess seen above. 

Honestly, I don't see anything worth keeping in this flag.  Even the imagery used in the seal, ignoring how fussy and confusing it is, could be representative of almost anywhere (generic mountains, a river, fields, etc.).  In the end I decided to maintain the shades of blue and the yellow used in the seal and discarding everything else.  I used the natural monument Chimney Rock as the basis for a new design as it is unique to the state and served as an important landmark for several of the trails used by American settlers to travel west, primarily to Oregon, California, and Utah.  Here is what I came up with:

Chimney Rock is balanced by a Zia sun symbol (also used on the New Mexico flag and seen on my proposal for a new Wisconsin flag) in the upper right in a design reminiscent of what was used on Nebraska's state quarter back in 2006:

If I had any artistic ability, I would have tried to include the image of the covered wagon, but I'll leave that to people who are using something more precise than MS Paint.

A quick note on the Zia sun symbol.  The Zia tribe is located in New Mexico, but that symbol has been found on flags in Wisconsin and Kansas, so I thought Nebraska (conveniently located between Wisconsin and Kansas) could use it as well.

My Progress So Far

In case anyone is interested, I wanted to post a quick entry on the progress I've made since beginning this blog:

If the state/province is green, it means there is a blog post for that flag.  I could post a map of the Australian states too, but it would just be solid green (except for the ACT).  As you can see, there are only six states left to do, though I'll admit there are a few I have done that are pretty awful and so they deserve another look.  With the exception of Virginia, the remaining states have not been filled in because it has been tough coming up with decent design ideas.  Virginia is the special case as it is my home state and I really want to get that flag right.  I'm on my 5th design so far, and I'm just not happy with it yet.

At any rate, these are the states you have to look forward to in the coming weeks.  After I finish the US (though probably before) I think I'll move on to the flags of the various British territories, most of which are textbook examples of monotonous.

As I've been working on this blog, I've also tried to keep up with all the countries from which someone has visited the site:

The vast majority of visits have come from Canada, the USA, and Australia, in that order.  Not very surprising, since I've devoted time to the flags of each of those countries.  The one that shocked me the most though was early last month when I got a number of hits from Syria.  I'm not sure how interesting the conversations on this blog can be to someone in Syria, but I doubt anything on this site is a threat to the Assad regime.  Not directly related to the flags, but I thought it was neat how even an obscure subject like this can be found by people all over the globe.

New Flag for North Dakota

Let's hope my attempt at a new North Dakotan flag turns out better than the one I did for South Dakota.  Here's what we have to work with:

This is yet another example of a seal and blue flag, but at least this one has a neat eagle.  The eagle is way too detailed, the plus side being that it isn't surrounded by superfluous stuff like most state seals.  For the Louisiana flag, which also prominently features a large bird, my main change was to simplify the creature to make it less fussy.  I considered doing that with this flag, but didn't want to repeat myself.

My next idea was a wood chipper on a white and red background, but I doubt North Dakota wants that to be the new symbol of the state.  Plus, it would be too regional, and I want to represent more than just Fargo.

North Dakota doesn't have much flag history.  The current design was adopted in 1911 and was based on a regimental banner carried by North Dakotan soldiers in the Spanish-American War.  The only change they made when it was officially adopted was the addition of the banner along the bottom.  In recent months, there was an attempt to change the flag to a much simpler design, but I've been unable to find that news story again.  If I remember correctly, it was a single large star in yellow and blue, but I may not have that right.  I know it didn't get through the legislature though.  (It might have been South Dakota actually, which would be embarrassing for me)
EDIT: The proposal I was thinking of was South Dakota, thanks Leonardo, and my bad.

At any rate, I wouldn't want to use that design anyway, as I do try to be original in my suggestions.  They aren't always good, but I try not to (overtly) copy others.  In that spirit, I decided to take my inspiration from a flag that I'm sure few outside of North Dakota would recognize (and probably not too many inside if we're being honest), the standard of the Governor of North Dakota:

This flag, even with all the tiny details, is better than North Dakota's current flag.  Green is not a common background color in the US, which I think is a shame, but this flag makes good use of it.  The text will have to go, as will the bow and arrows at the top, but in the end I didn't make as many changes as you might expect:

I've altered the dimensions of the flag, making it less long and narrow, and removed the detail I mentioned above.  I also rotated the arrowhead, so that it is now pointing north, for obvious reasons.  North Dakota has a much better connection to its Native American heritage than many other states and the use of the arrowhead reflects that. 

As for the four stars, I decided to justify them as representing the four corners of the state.  I was initially pleased because I thought North Dakota was the 40th state and that only having four stars could represent that as well, but when I double-checked my dates, I found it was the 39th, so no help there.  I do not know what they stood for on the original governor's flag, but they seem to show up on many governors' flag across the country, so maybe they don't belong here at all.  Regardless, I decided to keep them, mostly because I thought it looked  little boring with just the arrowhead.

New Flag for Nevada

Nevada, home of deserts, Las Vegas, and Area 51 (which probably doesn't have aliens, my sole reason being that if the government can't cover up a break in at a hotel, I doubt they could hid a spaceship for this long).  The flag for this state should be interesting and dynamic, but sadly, this is not the case:

Nevada's flag is blue.  There is a little seal in the corner to keep it from being a blue version of Libya's old flag, but it still isn't very interesting.  I like the phrase "Battle Born" (used because Nevada became a state during the Civil War), but that doesn't mean it belongs on the flag.  This flag was also designed in a contest, and unlike Alaska, this contest didn't turn out so well.  Luckily, Nevada had another flag back at the beginning of the 20th century, so let's take a look:

I like this flag better than the current one, but we would need to do something about the text.  Even though the key feature of this flag is words, I toyed with the idea of leaving it as is.  It makes a very simple statement "We are Nevada. We have silver and gold.  That is all."  It was referring to the rich mineral wealth of the state, but it could be interpreted today to be a reference to casinos as well.  Eventually, I decided to use the flag as a template and this is the result:

Using the color scheme the flag already had, I turned the word "Silver" into a silver stripe, the word "Gold" into a gold stripe, and removed the word "Nevada" completely.  I re-centered the stars, and as there are 36 and Nevada was the 36th state, I didn't think any further changes were necessary.

New Flag for Connecticut

This week we'll look at the flag of Connecticut:

Yet another seal-on-blue with text and lots of fussy details.  The blue is a lighter shade than most (at least in this version, I have also seen it with a darker shade), but otherwise is virtually indistinguishable from others.  The grapevines are meant to represent either the first towns of Connecticut Colony or the three colonies that began in the area that is now Connecticut (Saybrook, New Haven, and Connecticut).  I toyed with the idea of enlarging the grapevines and re-centering them on just a blue background, but I wasn't able to simplify them to my satisfaction.  When I tried to remove the detail but retain the basic shape, I just ended up with a purple and brown design that looked more like a "$" than anything.

The words and seal would have to be removed, of course, and following my experiments with the grapevines, I decided to get rid of them too.  Luckily for me, Connecticut has another popular symbol, the charter oak.  Back in the 1680's, James II tried to consolidate his North American colonies to make them easier to manage and thus ordered that the colonies of New England (Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut) be combined into a Dominion of New England.  This was not a popular idea as each of the colonies valued their individuality, and when the new royal governor came to collect Connecticut's original royal charter to symbolically destroy it, it was hidden from him in the trunk of a large oak tree, which came to be known as the charter oak.  The dominion was so unpopular, it only lasted three years.  The tree stood well into the 19th century and was even used on the back of Connecticut's state quarter in 1999.

If I were a better artist, or perhaps more skilled with Microsoft Paint, I would have created a better charter oak image for the flag, something along the lines of the palmetto that South Carolina uses.  Since I can't though, I just took the tree image from the flag of Oakland, California, figuring that a city called OAK-land would probably use an oak.  And besides, few people can tell deciduous trees apart in real life, let alone when they're only stylized representations on a flag.  I also added a yellow border to make the background more interesting. 

In the end though, I couldn't decide between a green tree or a yellow one.  I'm leaning toward the yellow, but only because it keeps the flag to two colors.  I'll leave it to others to choose between them:

 
The yellow used is the same shade that is present in the current flag, the green though is darker than the current grapevine leaves.  I found the lighter green was not well defined on the blue background.

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. 

New Flag for Louisiana

Louisiana is another state with a seal-on-blue design, one unique because of the four pelicans, but otherwise unremarkable.  It went through only a few minor changes for much of its 20th century history and looked like this:

However, back in 2010, the state decided to correct decades of haphazardly following their own flag guidelines and updated it:

This flag has one of the more realistic images I've ever seen (on a flag, anyway).  Compared to the previous versions, this one looks like the birds were painted by James Audubon.  As much as I like the detailed and biologically accurate pelicans, they go against the basic idea of flag simplicity.  Louisiana's is more recognizable than most of the other seal and blue flags, but that isn't good enough, especially when the state has a really awesome design in its past:

This is the flag of the Republic of Louisiana, a country that existed during the brief period between the state's secession from the United States in January, 1861 and its joining the Confederate States a few weeks later.  It was never recognized by any foreign governments, but it had a great flag.  This flag was used through the Civil War, alongside an early form of the pelican banner.  Sadly for me, this design has already been proposed as a replacement at another blog, so I'll have to come up with something on my own.

My first idea was to simplify the pelican design, removing most of the detail of the nest and wings, as well as the banner, and enlarging the birds.  I used the version from the pre-2010 flag because the earlier, more cartoony design was easier to alter without losing the basic idea.  The symbolism of the pelican is well suited to the Pelican State, and the "pelican in her piety" imagry dates back to the Middle Ages in Europe, where it was thought the pelican was such a good mother that she would make herself bleed to feed her hatchlings.  An image with a history that rich is too good to discard.

That design was ok, but from a distance, it would be virtually indistinguishable from either the current flag or the flags of several other states; it would just be a big white splotch on a blue background.  The solution I eventually came to was this:

I've made the pelicans a little smaller and moved them to the upper-left corner, similar to Nevada's flag.  I used the shade of blue from the current flag, but it was kind of boring with a mostly empty blue field.  Thus the red stripe on the right.  The red doesn't have any particular significance, though I suppose it could be reminiscent of the Third National Flag of the Confederacy, but I just chose it because I thought it looked good.  If Tennessee can have a stripe with no specific meaning, I don't see why Louisiana can't as well.

New Flag for Pennsylvania

I went to college up in Pennsylvania and grew used to seeing their flag fairly often.  For some reason, I often got into arguments with a friend of mine over the identity of said flag.  She, a native of the Pittsburgh area, would claim that the flag we saw was that of New York.  I don't know why she thought that, maybe she just wished PA had a better flag or it was a weird memory thing, but it was a long running dispute between the two of us.  I'm not sure where I was going with that story, except maybe to point out the "danger" involved in not having a recognizable state flag, so here's what I'm talking about:

It's just a seal on dark blue, so there's not much else to say.  The horses are neat, I guess, but although text isn't great at relaying tone, I hope my extreme indifference and resignation to this type of design is being felt. 

This flag is boring.  I could go into further detail, but anyone who has read any of my other posts can probably identify why.

Pennsylvania is one of the original thirteen colonies, with a rich history including such luminaries as Ben Franklin, Thaddeus Stevens, and James Buchanan (I don't actually consider Buchanan to be a luminary, I think he was one the worst presidents America has ever had, but he was from Pennsylvania).  As such you would think they could come up with an interesting flag design, but as the above image shows, you'd be wrong.

In thinking about a new design for PA, I tried to identify symbols that were unique to the state.  The one I kept coming back to was the Keystone.  Pennsylvania is often referred to as the Keystone State, and as it is a simple, straightforward design, it should be easy to incorporate.  One example I found of this was made by VoronX over at the Flag Forum site:

My favorite part of this design is the diagonal stripe, which mimic the way the Appalachian Mountains run diagonally through the state.  Blue for the rivers, lakes, and that tiny corner that could be said to be touching the Atlantic, black for coal and industry, and green for agriculture.  Using the template of St. Paul, Minnesota's flag, here's what I've developed:

I've put two designs up because I couldn't decide between them.  I like the idea of just blue, yellow, and black on the first flag; it provides decent contrast.  I also like the addition of green to the bottom design, though that may just be because I like green in general.  The star doesn't have any specific PA meaning, I just thought it breaks up the design without being too busy.  The placement of the keystone was also deliberate, with just a small area of blue spilling over.

On a personal note, I just noticed that I've been working on this blog for a year now, so happy blog-birthday to me! 

New Flag for North Carolina

North Carolina's flag isn't too bad:

Of course, I have some picayune problems with it, mostly in reference to the text on the little banners, but by and large this is a neat flag design.  Large blocks of color, no distracting or minute details, just remove the text and we can call it a day:

But you know, I can't help the feeling that I've seen this flag somewhere before, like it may be a design already in use. . .:

This, in case you don't know, is the flag of Texas, a very well-known and much beloved symbol of all things Texan.  In predates the North Carolina flag as a state symbol by about fifteen years and was used before that by the Texas Republic, quite a significant pedigree in my opinion.  In contrast, North Carolina first adopted a state flag in 1861 when it seceded from the Union and it looked like this:

It was changed after the Civil War to its current design, which I think was unfortunate.  With the secession flag, North Carolina at least toyed with the color scheme (plus I think the big star on red looks spiffy), rather than the modern day flag which is essentially the flag of Texas inverted and defaced with text.

In the interest of creating a new design, and in deference to the Texas flag (which, as I've said in an earlier post, is terrific), I present my idea on a new flag for North Carolina:

This preserves the basic idea behind the current flag, but changes it in enough ways as to be easily distinguishable from that of Texas.  I returned to the color scheme of the secession-era flag and removed the star and text.  The template for this flag is actually the flag of the city of Memphis, Tennessee, though it had a seal on the vertical stripe.  The red on the hoist is nice and broad, hopefully separating it from any tri-colors or other Texas-esque flags out there.  No text, images, or crazy designs, just red, white, and blue.  And I suppose, if one was so inclined, the diagonal slant could be reminiscent of North Carolina's western border, but you'll never hear me make such a claim. 

A brief bit of explanation for the slightly ridiculous amount of brown-nosing I did in regards to the flag of Texas.  It is a great state flag, and though that may be my favorite thing about Texas, I feel the few truly original state flags should be defended.  If all the states copied New Mexico, Maryland, and Texas, it would just dilute those designs and leave us with a confusing mess of virtually identical flags, a scenario not too different from what we have now with all the seal-on-blue banners.

New Flag for Minnesota

This week, we'll return to the United States after a sojourn to Australia and a (not so) brief hiatus.  Let's take a look at the flag of Minnesota:

Here we see a typical seal-on-blue arrangement so common for states in the USA.  It hits several of the points on my list of boring flag designs, including blue background, state seal, and text.  As I've worked my way through these flags, I've come to realize that spelling out your state's name on your flag may be a coping mechanism, a feeble attempt to help the citizens identify their own flag.  If it were up to me, I'd solve this problem by not using the same design as everyone else, but then I'm very rarely asked for input in these matters (I like to think it's because I hadn't been born, but who knows).

Minnesota's flag does have one interesting feature that I kind of like; the arrangement of the stars behind the seal suggesting one large star.  It's a little reminiscent of a sheriff's badge.  The seal itself is far too busy, including a farmer, a Native American on horseback, mountains, a waterfall, and a lump in the corner that is supposed to be a stump.  If it's hard to make out that detail in the above image, just imagine trying to decipher it when it is flying from a flagpole.  I think Minnesota can do better.

Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes and has a rich and interesting history.  My favorite synopsis of this history however, come from the Onion's hilarious "Our Dumb World" atlas.  It states,

"After being told by Eastern explorers that they had an unusual number of lakes, intrepid Minnesotans started counting, got stuck at 99, and just skipped ahead to the highest number they'd ever heard of, 10,000."

The flag of Minnesota has been the subject of debate for many years.  Some dislike how boring it is and others are troubled by the fact that it takes Manifest Destiny as an inevitable force.  Both are valid and one common solution that has arisen is the "North Star" flag:

This flag isn't too bad, only a few colors, good contrast, simple design, but it probably isn't fair of me to claim I fixed the flag without offering a suggestion of my own:

This flag uses colors taken from the original, placing white on the top to symbolize Minnesota's northern position, yellow and green below for the mineral and agricultural wealth of the state, and a blue circle in the center standing for the state's many lakes.  I like this design, even if it looks a little like India's flag, and white as the top stripe would certainly be unique in American state flags.  If I were the people of Minnesota though, I'd probably go with the "North Star."

New Flag for Tasmania

The last Australian state flag to look at is the flag of Tasmania, probably best known to American audiences because of the Tasmanian Devil who chased Bugs Bunny and was just legs and arms sticking out of a head.  The actual animal does not spin like a tornado, can not eat horses in one bite, and also is not on the flag, though it should be:

Unfortunately, this island home of a number of really cool animals chose the red English (British?) lion as the symbol it wanted on the flag, along with the Union Jack seen in every other Australian state flag.

My first idea was a little lazy of me, as I thought I could get away with just putting a map on the flag, counting on the distinctive shape of the island to set it apart:

Pretend I used something other than MS Paint to create this flag, or that I used a higher resolution map to eliminate the blockiness, and this flag is only ok.  The island has a distinctive shape, resembling an animal's head maybe, or an arrowhead, but even with the two northern islands, it was just kind of boring.  I did some hunting through some other lesser known world flags and chose one which needed only a little color tweaking to make it Tasmania-appropriate:

This was originally the flag of Cojedes, a Venezuelan state in the north-east of that country.  The changes I made were making the bottom stripe white (it had been blue) to signify how Tasmania lay just north of Antarctica, the second stripe blue (it had been black) to show that only ocean separated Tasmania from the southern ice, and I flipped the sunburst from the left of the flag to the right, which is where Tasmania lies in relation to the Australian continent.  The orange and sun don't stand for anything specific, I just thought they looked good.

This may end my post on Australian flags, though if I can come up with a good idea, I'll probably do the Australian Capital Territory as well.

One last note, kudos to the interior divisions of the South American countries.  The provinces of Argentina, the states of Venezuela and Brazil, by and large have really great flags.  I foresee no need for a "Fix the Flags of Brazil" series of posts, because except for a few superfluous seals and coats-of-arms, they show great variety and simplicity.  Bravo.

New Flag for Queensland

Queensland's flag has a crown on it.  That factual statement is the nicest thing I can say about Queensland's flag:

Queensland is the second Australian state named after Queen Victoria, the other being Victoria (duh) and thus uses the same crown that we saw on Victoria's flag.  It's on top of a Maltese cross for some reason, but there are only six Australian states, you'd think they could at least use original clip art. 

As I stated in a previous post, I think it is a travesty that I haven't suggested any kangaroo-based designs yet, and because I only have Tasmania left and they have their own awesome animals, Queensland seems the place to do it:

The colors primarily represent the varied geography of the state, green for the tropical rainforests, yellow for the outback, and blue for the ocean (again, duh).  The yellow kangaroo on green is also a common symbol throughout Australia, they even have a boxing kangaroo flag often seen at sporting events, though I heard they got in trouble at the Vancouver Olympics for displaying it:

Kangaroo's are synonymous with this island continent/country, and deserve to show up on at least one of the state flags.