Update: Taylor Homoky’s design (see below) won the Arts Partnership contest. On 16 December 2015 the city’s Arts and Culture Commission voted to forward it along with other designs to the city’s communications manager. We couldn’t find any subsequent news regarding Fargo’s plans (or lack thereof) to adopt a flag.
Citizens of the flagless city of Fargo, North Dakota are thinking about changing that, thanks to an initiative by local arts activist Jackson Ridl. The teenaged Ridl already has had some success in accomplishing ambitious projects. Earlier this year he orchestrated a Kickstarter campaign to help realize Gary Greff’s Enchanted Highway, “a collection of the world’s largest scrap metal sculptures”. The $21,000 raised was the state’s most-funded Kickstarter ever.
Like many vexillonaires (flag activists) around the country, Ridl was inspired by Roman Mars’ TED Talk Why city flags may be the worst-designed thing you’ve never noticed, which has brought unprecedented exposure to Ted Kaye’s Good Flag, Bad Flag and the potential for great design to contribute to civic life.
Ridl wisely got the institutional backing of The Arts Partnership of Fargo (theartspartnership.net), which is hosting the design competition on their servers. Submissions (78 in all) were accepted from residents and former residents of Fargo, Moorhead, and West Fargo through the month of August. Online voting on favorites — “what flag they think best represents The Land of the Free, and The Home of the Lutefisk” said Arts Partnership Executive Director Dayna Del Val — ended yesterday.
Here’s what happens next:
… the 15 flags with the most votes will be presented to the Arts Partnership, and the Arts and Culture Commission [created last December] for review. These groups will then select one design to present to the Fargo City Commission for possible adoption. The winning artist will receive $250 from The Arts Partnership and credit for designing the winning community-voted flag.*
*Upon completion of the selection based on community votes and payment for the winning design, another round of public voting may occur at the discretion of The Arts Partnership and the Fargo Art and Culture Commission. The original top 15 flags will be admitted to this round depending on opting-in to the rules of the second round of voting. …
This is the first time that the community has attempted to create a city flag. It is important to note that if the Fargo City Commission does not approve of the flag design it may not be adopted.
Though the city government is not officially involved at this stage, mayor Tim Mahoney has been quoted: “I never expected, to be honest with you, all these [submitted] flags. There’s a lot of people who put flags in. It’s kind of cool. It kind of shows the interest in the arts community to contribute.”
It appears that submissions took the form of a single image file, which can make understanding the intended symbolism difficult. (A couple submissions had descriptive text in the image itself, but it’s unclear whether this gave them an advantage or disadvantage — possibly a disadvantage, as none of these look to be among the most popular vote getters.) In a radio interview on Fargo’s WDAY-AM, Ridl pointed to the branding of North Dakota State University (Go, Bisons!) as one source of inspiration evident in a number of designs.
Here are the two submissions that included text (the first of which will look strangely familiar to residents of a certain Oregon city at the confluence of the Columbia and Willamette):
The most popular submission is this remarkably simple but unconventional design by a local Microsoft employee, Taylor Homoky:
And here are some other popular submissions:
Portland Flag Association 
[…] December 2015 Taylor Homoky’s unconventional design won a contest hosted by a Fargo non-profit, The Arts Partnership working with the city’s Arts and Culture […]
Hello, it’s Shyla Barker here!
I work as an academic writer and have created this content with the intent of changing your life for the better. I started honing my writing skills in high school. I learned that my fellow students needed writing help—and they were willing to pay for it. The money was enough to help pay my tuition for my remaining semesters of college.
Ever since school, I have continued to work as an academic writer. I was hired by a writing company based in the United Kingdom. Since then, the research papers that I have created have been sold around Europe and the United States.
In my line of work, I have become accustomed to hearing, “Shyla Barker, can you help me meet my writing assignment deadline?” I know that I can save their time.
Professional Writer – Shyla Barker – Paperhaberdasher Team
Good day and welcome to my website . I’m Shea Rutledge.
I have always dreamed of being a novelist but never dreamed I’d make a career of it. In college, though, I helped a fellow student who needed help. She could not stop telling me how well I had done. Word got around and someone asked me for to help them just a week later. This time they would pay me for my work.
During the summer, I started doing research papers for students at the local college. It helped me have fun that summer and even funded some of my college tuition. Today, I still offer my writing services to students.
Academic Writer – Shea Rutledge – http://www.studioahz.comCorps