By Casey Sims From Vexilloid Tabloid #51 About eight years ago a group of friends who attended Willamette University in the late 90s formed our band, Original Middleage Ska Enjoy Club. Our bandmate, Don Olsen, teaches art at local colleges—so we always have fun posters and materials. Our band is influenced by ska music, which… Continue reading The Portland Ska Flag
Author: SDM
Ethnography * Technology * Design
What’s that Flag? (from VexTab #41)
Self-Similar Flags
The the popular meme shows, the flag of Norway is the "mother of flags". It doesn't, however, contain itself (unless you don't care about the relative widths of the white and blue parts to the whole). In other words, it is not self-similar. A less-popular meme points out one national flag that has this property:… Continue reading Self-Similar Flags
The US Flag in the 21st Century
31 October 2000 American hip hop duo Outkast release their fouth studio album, Stankonia. The iconic album cover consists of Big Boi and André 3000 posing in front of a huge, black-and-white US flag with inverted stars: the funkified flag of Stankonia (which actually was manufactured and hung on the wall in their Atlanta studios). (For more,… Continue reading The US Flag in the 21st Century
The US Flag in the 20th Century (2nd half)
19 September 1952 The Adventures of Superman begins airing on American television, following an undocumented alien immigrant as he fights "the never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way". The famous opening sequence ends with George Reeves standing before a US flag, somehow briskly flying in outer space. In less than 20 years, fiction will become… Continue reading The US Flag in the 20th Century (2nd half)
The US Flag in the 20th Century (1st half)
4 March 1907 In Halter v. Nebraska the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of two businessmen for "desecrating" the flag by using its imagery on the label of their "Stars and Stripes" brand beer. 4 July 1912 The US adopts the 48-star flag, recognizing the admission of New Mexico and Arizona earlier that year. This marks a turning point in US flag… Continue reading The US Flag in the 20th Century (1st half)
The US Flag in the 19th Century
14 September 1814 Aboard the HMS Tonnant, at "dawn's early light" attorney Francis Scott Key sees a large US flag still flying over Fort McHenry despite its overnight bombardment during the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812. He publishes his poem "Defence of Fort M'Henry" in the American and Commercial Daily Advertiser seven days later. Both… Continue reading The US Flag in the 19th Century
The US Flag in the 18th Century
1 May 1707 The Acts of Union take effect, creating the Kingdom of Great Britain and the making the red, white, and blue King's Colors its flag. This flag and its Red Ensign variant were influential in American flag-making. 21 September 1737 American civil servant and likely designer of the 13-star flag Francis Hopkinson born in Philadelphia. He famously… Continue reading The US Flag in the 18th Century
What’s that Flag? (from VexTab #40)
For more tree flags, see our blog post, Arboreal Flags.
Money Flags
Money occasionally makes its way onto flags, as a promotion for a particular currency, a political statement, a commemoration of a ransom, or as a design exercise. For examples of all of these possibilities, see below.
Portland Flag Association 