-
I know what you're thinking:
-
"Why does that guy get to sit down?"
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That's because this is radio.
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(Music)
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I tell radio stories about design,
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and I report on all kinds of stories:
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buildings and toothbrushes
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and mascots and wayfinding and fonts.
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My mission is to get people to engage
with the design that they care about
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so they begin to pay attention
to all forms of design.
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When you decode the world
with design intent in mind,
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the world becomes kind of magical.
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Instead of seeing the broken things,
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you see all the little bits of genius
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that anonymous designers have sweated over
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to make our lives better.
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And that's essentially
the definition of design:
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making life better and providing joy.
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And few things give me greater joy
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than a well-designed flag.
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(Laughter) (Applause)
-
Yeah!
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Happy 50th anniversary
on your flag, Canada.
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It is beautiful, gold standard. Love it.
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I'm kind of obsessed with flags.
-
Sometimes I bring up the topic of flags,
-
and people are like,
"I don't care about flags,"
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and then we start talking
about flags, and trust me,
-
100 percent of people care about flags.
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There's just something about them
that works on our emotions.
-
My family wrapped my Christmas presents
as flags this year,
-
including the blue gift bag
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that's dressed up as the flag of Scotland.
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I put this picture online,
and sure enough,
-
within the first few minutes,
someone left a comment that said,
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"You can take that Scottish Saltire
and shove it up your ass." (Laughter)
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Which -- see, people are passionate
about flags, you know?
-
That's the way it is.
-
What I love about flags
-
is that once you understand
the design of flags,
-
what makes a good flag,
what makes a bad flag,
-
you can understand
the design of almost anything.
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So what I'm going to do here is,
-
I cracked open an episode
of my radio show,
-
"99% Invisible," and I'm going
to reconstruct it here on stage,
-
so when I press a button over here --
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Voice: S for Sound --
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Roman Mars: It's going to make a sound,
-
and so whenever you hear a sound
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or a voice or a piece of music,
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it's because I pressed a button.
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Voice: Sssssound.
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RM: All right, got it? Here we go.
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Three, two.
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This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars.
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Narrator: The five basic
principles of flag design.
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Roman Mars: According to the North
American Vexillological Association.
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Vexillological.
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Ted Kaye: Vexillology
is the study of flags.
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RM: It's that extra "lol"
that makes it sound weird.
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Narrator: Number one,
keep it simple.
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The flag should be so simple
that a child can draw it from memory.
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RM: Before I moved to Chicago in 2005,
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I didn't even know cities
had their own flags.
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TK: Most larger cities
do have flags.
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RM: Well, I didn't know that.
That's Ted Kaye, by the way.
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TK: Hello.
RM: He's a flag expert.
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He's a totally awesome guy.
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TK: I'm Ted Kaye. I have edited
a scholarly journal on flag studies,
-
and I am currently involved
with the Portland Flag Association
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and the North American
Vexillological Association.
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RM: Ted literally wrote
the book on flag design.
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Narrator: "Good Flag, Bad Flag."
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RM: It's more of a pamphlet, really.
It's about 16 pages.
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TK: Yes, it's called
"Good Flag, Bad Flag:
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How to Design a Great Flag."
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RM: And that first city flag
I discovered in Chicago
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is a beaut:
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white field, two horizontal blue stripes,
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and four six-pointed red stars
down the middle.
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Narrator: Number two:
use meaningful symbolism.
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(Audio) TK: The blue stripes
represent the water,
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the river, and the lake.
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(Audio) Female: The flag's images,
color, or pattern should relate
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to what it symbolizes.
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(Audio) TK: The red stars represent
significant events in Chicago's history.
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RM: Namely the founding of Fort Dearborn
on the future site of Chicago,
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the Great Chicago Fire,
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the World Columbian Exposition,
which everyone remembers
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because of the White City,
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and the Century of Progress Exposition,
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which no one remembers at all.
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(Audio) Female: Number three,
use two to three basic colors.
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(Audio) TK: The basic rule for colors
is to use two to three colors
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from the standard color set:
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red, white, blue,
green, yellow, and black.
-
RM: The design of the Chicago flag
has complete buy-in
-
with an entire cross-section of the city.
-
It is everywhere:
-
every municipal building flies the flag.
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(Audio) Whet Moser: Like, there's probably
at least one store on every block
-
near where I work that sells
some sort of Chicago flag paraphernalia.
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RM: That's Whet Moser
from Chicago Magazine.
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(Audio) WM: Today, just for example,
I went to get a haircut,
-
and when I sat down in the barber's chair,
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there was a Chicago flag on the box
that the barber kept all his tools in,
-
and then in the mirror there was
a Chicago flag on the wall behind me.
-
When I left, a guy passed me who had
a Chicago flag badge on his backpack.
-
RM: It's adaptable and remixable.
-
The six-pointed stars in particular
show up in all kinds of places.
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(Audio) WM: The coffee
I bought the other day
-
had a Chicago star on it.
-
RM: It's a distinct symbol
of Chicago pride.
-
(Audio) TK: When a police officer
or a firefighter dies in Chicago,
-
often it's not the flag of the
United States on his casket.
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It can be the flag of the city of Chicago.
-
That's how deeply the flag has gotten
into the civic imagery of Chicago.
-
RM: And it isn't just that people
love Chicago and therefore love the flag.
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I also think that people love Chicago more
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because the flag is so cool.
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(Audio) TK: A positive feedback loop there
between great symbolism and civic pride.
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RM: Okay. So when I moved back
to San Francisco in 2008,
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I researched its flag,
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because I had never seen it
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in the previous eight years I lived there.
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And I found it, I am sorry to say,
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sadly lacking.
-
(Laughter)
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I know.
-
It hurts me, too.
-
(Laughter)
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(Audio) TK: Well, let me
start from the top.
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(Audio) Female: Number one,
keep it simple.
-
(Audio) TK: Keeping it simple.
-
(Audio) Female: The flag
should be so simple
-
that a child can
draw it from memory.
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(Audio) TK: It's
a relatively complex flag.
-
RM: Okay, here we go. Okay.
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The main component
of the San Francisco flag is a phoenix
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representing the city
rising from the ashes
-
after the devastating fires of the 1850s.
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(Audio) TK: A powerful symbol
for San Francisco.
-
RM: I still don't really dig the Phoenix.
-
Design-wise, it manages
to both be too crude
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and have too many details
at the same time,
-
which if you were trying for that,
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you wouldn't be able to do it,
-
and it just looks bad at a distance,
-
but having deep meaning
puts that element in the plus column.
-
Behind the phoenix,
the background is mostly white,
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and then it has a substantial
gold border around it.
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(Audio) TK: Which is
a very attractive design element.
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RM: I think it's okay. But
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-- (Laughter) --
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here come the big no-nos of flag design.
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(Audio) Female: Number four,
no lettering or seals.
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Never use writing of any kind.
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RM: Underneath the phoenix,
there's a motto on a ribbon
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that translates to:
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"gold in peace, iron in war."
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Plus, and this is the big problem,
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it says San Francisco across the bottom.
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(Audio) TK: If you need to write the name
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of what you're representing on your flag,
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your symbolism has failed.
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(Laughter) (Applause)
-
RM: The United States flag doesn't say,
like, "USA" across the front.
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In fact, country flags,
they tend to behave.
-
Like, hats off to South Africa
and Turkey and Israel
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and Somalia and Japan and Gambia.
-
There's a bunch
of really great country flags,
-
but they obey good design principles
because the stakes are high.
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They're on the international stage.
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But city, state and regional flags
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are another story.
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(Laughter)
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There is a scourge of bad flags,
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and they must be stopped.
-
(Laughter) (Applause)
-
That is the truth and that is the dare.
-
The first step is to recognize
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that we have a problem.
-
A lot of people tend to think
that good design
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is just a matter of taste,
-
and quite honestly,
sometimes it is, actually,
-
but sometimes it isn't. All right?
-
Here's the full list of NAVA
flag design principles.
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(Audio) Female: The five
basic principles of flag design.
-
Number one, keep it simple.
-
Number two.
TK: Use meaningful symbolism.
-
(Audio) Female: Number three.
TK: Use two to three basic colors.
-
(Audio) Female: Number four.
TK: No letter or seals.
-
(Audio) Female: Never use
writing of any kind.
-
(Audio) TK: Because you can't
read that at a distance.
-
(Audio) Female: Number five.
(Audio) TK: And be distinctive.
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RM: All the best flags tend
to stick to these principles.
-
And like I said before,
most country flags are okay.
-
But here's the thing:
-
if you showed this list of principles
to any designer of almost anything,
-
they would say these principles
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-- simplicity, deep meaning,
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having few colors or being
thoughtful about colors,
-
uniqueness, don't have
writing you can't read --
-
all those principles apply to them, too.
-
But sadly, good design principles
are rarely invoked
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in U.S. city flags.
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Our biggest problem
seems to be that fourth one.
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We just can't stop ourselves
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from putting our names on our flags,
-
or, like, little municipal seals
with tiny writing on them.
-
Here's the thing about municipal seals:
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they were designed
to be on pieces of paper
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where you can read them,
-
not on flags 100 feet away
flapping in breeze.
-
So here's a bunch of flags again.
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Vexillologists call these SOBs:
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seals on a bedsheet -- (Laughter) --
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and if you can't tell
what city they go to,
-
yeah, that's exactly the problem,
-
except for Anaheim, apparently.
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They fixed it. (Laughter)
-
These flags are everywhere in the U.S.
-
The European equivalent
of the municipal seal
-
is the city coat of arms,
-
and this is where we can learn
a lesson for how to do things right.
-
So this is the city
coat of arms of Amsterdam.
-
Now, if this were a United States city,
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the flag would probably look like this.
-
You know, yeah. (Laughter)
-
But instead, the flag of Amsterdam
-
looks like this.
-
Rather than plopping
the whole coat of arms
-
on a solid background and writing
"Amsterdam" below it,
-
they just take the key elements
of the escutcheon, the shield,
-
and they turn it into the most
badass city flag in the world.
-
(Laughter) (Applause)
-
And because it's so badass,
-
those flags and crosses
are found throughout Amsterdam,
-
just like Chicago, they're used.
-
Even though seal-on-a-bedsheet flags
are particularly painful
-
and offensive to me,
-
nothing can quite prepare you
-
for one of the biggest train wrecks
in vexillological history.
-
Are you ready?
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It's the flag of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
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(Laughter)
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I mean, it's distinctive,
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I'll give them that.
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(Audio) TK: It was adopted in 1955.
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RM: The city ran a contest
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and gathered a bunch of submissions
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with all kinds of designs.
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(Audio) TK: And an alderman
by the name of Fred Steffan
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cobbled together parts of the submissions
-
to make what is now the Milwaukee flag.
-
RM: It's a kitchen sink flag.
-
There's that gigantic gear
representing industry,
-
there's a ship recognizing the port,
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a giant stalk of wheat
-
paying homage to the brewing industry.
-
It's a hot mess,
-
and Steve Kotas, a graphic designer
from Milwaukee, wants to change it.
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(Audio) Steve Kotas: It's really awful.
-
It's a misstep on the city's behalf,
-
to say the least.
-
RM: But what puts
the Milwaukee flag over the top,
-
almost to the point of self-parody,
-
is on it is a picture
-
of the civil war battle flag
-
of the Milwaukee regiment.
-
(Audio) SK: So that's
the final element in it
-
that just makes it
that much more ridiculous,
-
that there is a flag design
within the Milwaukee flag.
-
RM: On the flag. Yeah. Yeah. (Laughter)
-
Yeah.
-
(Music)
-
Now Milwaukee is a fantastic city.
-
I've been there. I love it.
-
The most depressing part
of this flag, though,
-
is that there have been
two major redesign contests.
-
The last one was held in 2001.
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105 entries were received.
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(Audio) TK: But in the end, the members
of the Milwaukee Arts Board
-
decided that none of the new entries
were worthy of flying over the city.
-
RM: They couldn't agree
to change that thing! (Laughter)
-
That's discouraging enough
to make you think
-
that good design and democracy
-
just simply do not go together.
-
But Steve Kotas is going
to try one more time
-
to redesign the Milwaukee flag.
-
(Audio) SK: I believe Milwaukee
is a great city.
-
Every great city deserves a great flag.
-
RM: Steve isn't ready
to reveal his design yet.
-
One of the things about
proposing one of these things
-
is you have to get people on board,
-
and then you reveal your design.
-
But here's the trick:
-
if you want to design a great flag,
-
a kickass flag like Chicago's or DC's,
which also has a great flag,
-
start by drawing a one-by-one-and-a-half
inch rectangle on a piece of paper.
-
Your design has to fit
within that tiny rectangle.
-
Here's why.
-
(Audio) TK: A three-by-five foot flag
-
on a pole a hundred feet away
-
looks about the same size
-
as a one-by-one-and-a-half inch rectangle
-
seen about 15 inches from your eye.
-
You'd be surprised by how compelling
and simple the design can be
-
when you hold yourself to that limitation.
-
RM: Meanwhile, back in San Francisco.
-
Is there anything we can do?
-
(Audio) TK: I like to say
that in every bad flag
-
there's a good flag trying to get out.
-
The way to make
San Francisco's flag a good flag
-
is to take the motto off
-
because you can't read that at a distance.
-
Take the name off,
-
and the border might even be made thicker,
-
so it's more a part of the flag.
-
And I would simply take the Phoenix
-
and make it a great big element
-
in the middle of the flag.
-
RM: But the current Phoenix,
that's gotta go.
-
(Audio) TK: I would simplify
-
or stylize the phoenix.
-
Depict a big, wide-winged bird
-
coming out of flames.
-
Emphasize those flames.
-
RM: So this San Francisco flag
was designed by Frank Camaro
-
based on Ted Kaye's suggestions.
-
I don't know what he would do
if we was completely unfettered
-
and didn't follow those guidelines.
-
Fans of my radio show and podcast,
-
they've heard me complain about bad flags.
-
They've sent me other suggested designs.
-
This one's by Neil Mussett.
-
Both are so much better.
-
And I think if they were adopted,
-
I would see them around the city.
-
In my crusade to make
flags of the world more beautiful,
-
many listeners have taken it
upon themselves
-
to redesign their flags
and look into the feasibility
-
of getting them officially adopted.
-
If you see your city flag and like it,
-
fly it,
-
even if it violates
a design rule or two.
-
I don't care.
-
But if you don't see your city flag,
-
maybe it doesn't exist, but maybe it does,
-
and it just sucks,
-
and I dare you to join the effort
to try to change that.
-
As we move more and more into cities,
-
the city flag will become
-
not just a symbol of that city as a place,
-
but also it could become
-
a symbol of how that city
considers design itself,
-
especially today, as the populace
is becoming more design-aware.
-
And I think design awareness
is at an all-time high.
-
A well-designed flag could be seen
as an indicator of how a city
-
considers all of its design systems:
-
its public transit,
-
its parks, its signage.
-
It might seem frivolous, but it's not.
-
(Audio) TK: Often when city leaders say,
"We have more important things to do
-
than worry about a city flag,"
-
my response is,
-
"If you had a great city flag,
-
you would have a banner
for people to rally under
-
to face those more important things."
-
RM: I've seen firsthand
what a good city flag can do
-
in the case of Chicago.
-
The marriage of good design
and civic pride
-
is something that we need in all places.
-
The best part about municipal flags
-
is that we own them.
-
They are an open source,
-
publicly owned design language
of the community.
-
When they are done well,
-
they are remixable, adaptable,
-
and they are powerful.
-
We could control the branding
and graphical imagery
-
of our cities with a good flag,
-
but instead, by having
bad flags we don't use,
-
we cede that territory to sports teams
-
and chambers of commerce
and tourism boards.
-
Sports teams can leave
and break our hearts.
-
And besides, some of us
don't really care about sports.
-
And tourism campaigns
can just be cheesy.
-
But a great city flag
-
is something that represents
a city to its people
-
and its people to the world at large.
-
And when that flag is a beautiful thing,
-
that connection is a beautiful thing.
-
So maybe all the city flags
can be as inspiring as Hong Kong
-
or Portland or Trondheim,
-
and we can do away with all the bad flags
-
like San Francisco, Milwaukee,
-
Cedar Rapids,
-
and finally, when we're all done,
-
we can do something
about Pocatello, Idaho,
-
considered by the North American
Vexillological Association
-
as the worst city flag in North America.
-
(Laughter) (Applause)
-
Yeah.
-
That thing has a trademark
symbol on it, people. (Laughter)
-
That hurts me just to look at.
-
Thank you so much for listening.
-
(Applause)
-
[Music by: Melodium (@melodiumbox)
and Keegan DeWitt (@keegandewitt)
Krystian Aparta
The English transcript was updated on 2/28/2017. On-screen text was added at 17:36: [Proud to be Pocatello].