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… Continue reading Fargo – A Flag for the Flagless?
Author: SDM
Ethnography * Technology * Design
Animals with Flags
To encourage loyalty, tobacco companies used to give away a small collectible piece of printed fabric (a "silk") with each pack of cigarettes. Kovels Antiques notes, "popular subjects included actors and actresses, animals, baseball players, college mascots and seals, flags, generals, Indians, kings and queens, U.S. presidents, and Hamilton King girls." This 1915 set from the… Continue reading Animals with Flags
Flag Art by Nimai Kesten
Nimai Kesten (www.nimaikesten.com) grew up in an abusive Hare Krishna boarding school in Lake Huntington, NY before transforming "into a loud-mouthed, rebellious, New York City graffiti writing skateboarder" and surfer. He writes in his bio: In his early 20's, Nimai began to look at the life he carved out on the streets of New York for himself… Continue reading Flag Art by Nimai Kesten
Xavier Rudd & The United Nations: Flag
Xavier Rudd is an Australian singer-songwriter who recently brought together musicians from Australia, Germany, Ireland, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, and South Africa to form the band United Nations. Their reggae song Flag leads off their latest album Nanna. The video is built around images of white flags -- the white flag of peace, not surrender.… Continue reading Xavier Rudd & The United Nations: Flag
Letter Society Project 25: City Flag
Each month, collaborative design blog The Letter Society sets for its members a design challenge. Last June, Project 25 was City Flag. For inspiration, they pointed to Roman Mars' TED Talk The Worst-Designed Thing You've Never Noticed, featuring the PFA's Ted Kaye discussing Good Flag, Bad Flag. Here are the results of the design challenge: Seattle,… Continue reading Letter Society Project 25: City Flag
Red Flags and Labor Day
The Red Flag is, among other things, a traditional symbol of workers' power, dating back at least to the Merthyr Rising of 1831 when Welsh rioters used calf's blood to stain their flag red. In the United States, however, you won't see many red flags on Labor Day. Judging from photographs online, flag flying on Labor… Continue reading Red Flags and Labor Day
Portland’s Flag Turns 13
Happy Portland Flag Day! (Not yet an official holiday.) On 4 September 2002, after lobbying by flag designer Douglas Lynch (1913-2009) and the Portland Flag Association, the Portland City Council adopted ordinance 176874, revising the flag to its current (and originally intended) design. (For more on the redesign effort, see our History page.) Over the course… Continue reading Portland’s Flag Turns 13
Our Global Reach
We would like to take a moment and thank everyone in the audience for this website and blog. We can't recognize all of you, but we can recognize the top 10 countries you come from according to this year's server statistics. United States (16,367 views; share* 100) Fiji (1,898 views; share 13,523) Australia (1,591 views; share 174) United Kingdom (1,391 views; share 57)… Continue reading Our Global Reach
Zaricor Flag Collection
The Zaricor Flag Collection (ZFC) is the result of decades of flag collecting by wealthy California businessman Ben Zaricor. Its curator, the vexillologist and former flag merchant Jim Ferrigan, writes: The [ZFC], as the noted flag historian, the late Howard Madaus stated, is the largest most important representation of U.S. and American flags in the world.… Continue reading Zaricor Flag Collection
September Plans
A couple notes on goings-on next month (September 2015): First: Ted Kaye and Max Liberman will be heading Down Under to represent the PFA at this year's 26th International Congress of Vexillology, aka the Sydney Flag Conference hosted by Flags Australia and organized by FIAV. FIAV is the International Federation of Vexillological Associations, and holds this international meeting in… Continue reading September Plans
Portland Flag Association 