Yesterday the MV Marathassa, a Cypriot-flagged bulk carrier on its maiden voyage, spilled toxic oil into English Bay near downtown Vancouver, BC. Today a version of the Vancouver city flag protesting this event appeared on Twitter: The idea of modifying Canadian flags to protest environmental damage from oil has been done before, though perhaps not as… Continue reading Vancouver Oil Spill Flag
Author: SDM
Ethnography * Technology * Design
Logo Flags
The 4th basic principle of flag design is "no lettering or seals". Logos generally fall under this category as well. This doesn't keep lots of flags, particularly of corporations, from having logos on them. And occasionally a logo flag works well as a flag -- usually because it obeys all or most of the other… Continue reading Logo Flags
Showgirls Present Interstate 11 Flag
Highways often have logos, but they seldom (if ever?) have flags. On April 6 there was a sighting of this rare beast at a groundbreaking for Interstate 11 in Nevada attended by the governor, both US senators, and other officials. I-11 will bypass Boulder City, providing a faster link between Las Vegas and Phoenix. Las… Continue reading Showgirls Present Interstate 11 Flag
Flag Quotes
In Vexilloid Tabloid #37 Ted Kaye wrote: When I assumed the interim editorship of this publication after John Hood died, I found that the most difficult task wasn’t writing up the “Flutterings” after each meeting, or gathering and formatting photos, or soliciting and editing submissions from other members, or laying out the issue. The toughest… Continue reading Flag Quotes
Baseball’s Opening Day Flags
Spring is really here, now that Major League Baseball has had it's Opening Day. Across the country it was a pretty flaggy event, as captured by these tweets: https://twitter.com/MLBGIFs/status/585262118036832256
What’s that Flag? (from VexTab #39)
Reuniting Good Luck Flags with Families
Hinomaru yosegaki (日の丸 寄せ書き, literally "sun-circle sideways-writing") were "Good Luck Flags" carried by Japanese soldiers in World War II. Given to him by a soldier's close friends and family, these flags united the national (in the form of actual Japanese flags) with the intensely personal (in the form of handwritten messages from the gift givers). A non-profit named… Continue reading Reuniting Good Luck Flags with Families
Richard Gideon’s American Vexillum™
Richard R. Gideon is a flag maker and retailer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who since 2003 has been publishing American Vexillum™ Magazine (AVm). It started out as a monthly print publication, from 2003 to 2006, before moving online as a quarterly. Since 2012 it has been supplemented with daily updates of "topical news items of interest… Continue reading Richard Gideon’s American Vexillum™
American Flag Refreshed for 2015
Vice President Joseph Biden unveiled today the work of an until now little-noticed White House task force that has been looking at ways to improve America's image, at home and abroad. The result: a fresh new American flag for Spring 2015, that will be made official by an executive order to be signed this afternoon by President Obama. Biden… Continue reading American Flag Refreshed for 2015
China Plants Flag 3000m Under the Sea
A Chinese website reports that on March 19th an underwater robot placed the flag of China on the seabed nearly 3000m under the South China Sea. This marked a successful test of China's first "self-built multifunction deepwater engineering vessel" (我国自主建造的首艘深水多功能工程船). The article notes that placing flags so far under water is "not so easy" (深海插国旗不是那么容易)!
Portland Flag Association 