New Flag for Hawaii

It's tough to criticize the flag of Hawaii, but I plan to try:

As American state flags go, Hawaii's is good.  There's no text, no complicated seals, and only three colors.  The eight stripes represent the eight main islands.  It also has a great connection to history, as it was originally flown by the Kingdom of Hawaii.  It was created in the 1840's when Hawaii was a British protectorate, but modeled on both the flag of the UK and USA.  The Hawaiian king, Kamehameha III, hoped to appease the Americans (there were American settlers and missionaries on the islands) while showing respect for the British Empire.

As anyone who has seen my fixes for the Canadian provincial flags will know, I'm not a big fan of using the Union Jack on the flags of non-British places (I don't really like how it's used on places that are owned by the British, but we'll get to that if I ever do a Bermuda or Falkland Islands post).  In Canada it was understandable, they still maintain Queen Elizabeth II as their head of state, but the United States fought a war to not be British anymore.

One of the more admirable qualities of this flag is it's attempt to evoke the American flag but with symbolism that is unique to the islands, the number of stripes and their coloring being the most prominent.  With that in mind, I offer the following as a possible replacement:

And just like that, no more United Kingdom.  I can understand the criticism that the stripe colors don't really differentiate it enough from the American flag.  The number of stars is appropriate, since Hawaii was the 50th state, but that could just compound the problem of confusion.  My other thought was to dispose of the canton altogether, producing something like this:

This design also suggests the American flag, but does so in a way that looks less like a direct copy.  The empty blue canton could symbolize the ocean that surrounds the islands and I'm prone to just leaving it empty.  Someone with more artistic skill could easily fill that space with some sort of symbol of the islands (the state fish, the Humuhumunukunukuapua'a, might look snazzy up there), but I for one like the uncluttered look of the blank canton.

New Flag for Kentucky

Another seal on blue flag.  Quick, we need to plan a "You're not original" parade!:

As this flag style goes, Kentucky may be one of my favorites.  Of course, that's like saying the best smelling cow pie, but you know what I mean.  The imagery is at least slightly original and rather than generic depictions of virtue or justice, they've got a frontiersman shaking hands with a city guy (or statesmen, if you believe Kentucky's description).  Of course, all the writing is unnecessary and I'm not a fan of the goldenrod on the lower half.  A flag that promotes allergies is no friend of mine.

According to Kentucky, the people on the flag are not meant to be anyone specific, but the popular idea is that they are Daniel Boone and Henry Clay.  Despite his importance to early America and the events leading to the Civil War, Henry Clay isn't very well known to Americans today.  Daniel Boone is another story and is far more famous (though he is often confused with Davy Crockett).  Boone was a frontiersman, most notable for helping blaze the trail through the Cumberland Gap, leading settlers from Virginia to Kentucky, often breaking British laws in the years before independence to do so.  The thing that really makes him famous was his iconic headgear: the coonskin cap:

This is the second time I've used a hat as the basis for a flag (see Illinois).  I don't count my attempt at a South Dakota flag, because the more I think about it, the more I dislike that one.

The design is highly stylized, reminiscent of the flags which use basic shapes and colors to portray their geography, like The Gambia.  The color choices are meant only to portray a coonskin cap and to be distinguishable from each other.  I actually took the shades from the original Kentucky flag; the tan from the frontiersman's buckskin, the darker brown from the statesman's hair.  I suppose if forced to I could come up with some symbolism for these two colors, but not everything has to stand for something else.  Well, I guess in flags that's usually how it works, so how about...um...the light brown can represent horses, another thing Kentucky is famous for, and the darker brown can be for darker colored horses.  Nailed it.

One final note, according to historians, Boone never wore a coonskin cap.  But when has what actually happened in history ever stopped Kentucky?

New Flag for Kansas

This is the flag of Kansas:

I could make a flat and rectangular joke here, but it would be too easy.  Also, it probably wouldn't be funny.

This flag contains no surprises.  It shouts "KANSAS!" at you in a very large font, and except for the sunflower on the top, there is nothing very unique about this flag.  I would even make the argument that it doesn't represent Kansas very well even with all the detail in the central seal.  Why is there a mountain in the background?  In one of those few stereotypes that ends up being true, Kansas is very flat.  The highest point, Mount Sunflower, is 3,300 feet higher than the state's lowest point, but because Kansas gradually slopes up as you move west from Missouri toward Colorado, "Mount" Sunflower is a mountain in name only.  The point being, the peak on the seal is deceptive.

There is other stuff on the flag too, some stars, a farmer plowing a field, a steamboat, even Native Americans chasing a herd of bison (I kind of like that last one), but all that can be put aside in favor of the one semi-unique feature, the sunflower:

This flag maintains the shade of blue for the background, but is a twist on the sunburst design that other flags use.  This design uses only three colors, one of them being brown which isn't very common, and is fairly simple.  I tried creating this flag with more definition, such as outlining the petals to highlight that it is a flower, but I felt that created unnecessary clutter.

New Flag for New York

New Yorkers can be tricky to appease.  Perhaps that's one of the reasons they have such a boring flag:

To the majority of people who don't live in the state, the term "New York" refers to New York City more often then not.  To those who live in New York City, it means the same thing.  To the 11 million or so who don't live in the Five Boroughs, it refers to the whole state.  Thus the problem of finding symbols that would represent the state in both New Yorkers' eyes and for everyone else.  Obvious choices of the Empire State Building or Statue of Liberty are out because they don't have the same resonance for people in Binghamton, Rochester, or Utica (also, the Statue of Liberty is technically in New Jersey).  On the flip side is the fact that Upstate New York has relatively few landmarks that would be easily recognizable.  Niagara Falls is a possibility, as is the State House in Albany, but the former is shared with Canada and the latter looks too much like a mansion Vanderbilt or Hearst might have owned.

A greater unifying theme, and one that is unique to New York, is their history as a Dutch colony.  Before they were named for the Duke of York, New Amsterdam was the capital of New Netherland.  The first president from New York, Martin Van Buren, actually grew up speaking Dutch and learned English as a second language.  The current flags of New York City and Albany reflect this, using the orange, blue, and white taken from the Dutch flag:

The Dutch flag consists of horizontal stripes, like the flag of Albany, so the NYC flag is a bit more distinctive when it rotates them.  However, sticking too close to the NYC flag would doubtless be unpopular elsewhere.  Plus, they both have seals in the center, and we can't have that.  Instead I propose to keep the color scheme, but include a icon to represent the whole state:

Orange, blue, and white remain, speaking to the history of the state and by making orange the most prominent color, giving the flag a unique look that would make it easily distinguishable from the other states.  The narrowness of the blue stripe is meant to represent the Erie Canal, an Upstate landmark that greatly influenced the City as well.  When it was completed in 1825, goods could be taken by water from Chicago and the rest of the Old Northwest (Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, etc.) to the harbors of New York City, bringing even more business to that already thriving metropolis, as well as other areas of the state.  The Erie canal is one of the few symbols that really tie the state together and this simple, clean rendering is far easier to draw, distinguish, and remember than their current seal on blue arrangement.

Arizona, Colorado, D.C., and Tennessee

In honor of procrastination, this week we'll look at a few more flags that I don't think need any help.

1) Arizona:

Bright primary colors and a great use of copper.  If I have to make a critique, it's that the top half of the star is a little indistinct because of the surrounding lines, but that's the worst I've got so Arizona needs to make no apologies.  Just make sure you have your papers if you visit.

2) Colorado:

The most common complaint I've heard about this flag is it looks a little too much like a corporate logo.  I understand the sentiment, but don't share it.  Only corporations are allowed to used stylized letters?  That doesn't seem fair.  I love this flag.

3) Washington, D.C.:

Great history and far and away the best flag of the "Other" category of state flags (I like American Samoa too, but their eagle is pretty busy). This flag is the coat of arms of George Washington, first president, most famous man with false teeth, married a rich, attractive, young widow (those later portraits don't do Martha justice), first in war, first in peace, etc.  It ties in the history of the District with two parallel lines and three stars, hard to top that.

4) Tennessee:

The stars in the center can look a little jumbled, but they're really just rotating around a central point.  They also each represent one of the Grand Divisions of the state (East, West, and Middle).  But my favorite part of this flag is the blue stripe on the right.  When asked about the stripes symbolism, the designer, Colonel LeRoy Reeves said, "The final blue bar relieves the sameness of the crimson field and prevents the flag from showing too much crimson when hanging limp."  Did you get that?  The stripe is there just because.  Not sure why, but I really like that.