Week 10_4/1/16_Saint Louis Flag

Be introduced to the world of vexillology, an exciting field of design that will make you realize how much you have always loved flags.

            I was quite impressed with the explanation of the designs and uses of flags all over the world by Roman Mars in his talk. He displayed his passion for flags through his sincere desire to convey the importance of the each and every content inside of the rectangle in making a good or bad flags. He explained that every good flags must be simple, use meaningful symbols, have two to three basic colors, lack any letterings or seals, and be distinctive. This built a template for me to redesign the flag of my home city: Saint Louis.

            I was quite proud, as well as pleased, to learn that the Saint Louis flag has been voted as the fifth best designed United States city flag during the 2004 poll on the North American Vexillological Association website. Indeed, the flag was impressive. It featured blue and white think lines that converged at the fleur-de-lis. The lines represented the Missouri and Mississippi river that converges near the city. This is one of the most prominent traits of Saint Louis that deserves to be represented in the flag. The fleur-de-lis symbolizes the French Heritage of Saint Louis whom the city is named after. It looks nice and there are very meaningful symbols within the flag, but it fails to satisfy all of the criteria Mars gave in his talk mentioned above.

            As expected from one of the best designed flags, it has many traits a good flag should have. It has meaningful symbols that are easy to understand. It also does not have any letters or seals like many city flags do. Most notably, it is very distinctive as it stands out from other flags. However, it uses four different colors, which is one past the maximum given by Mars. Also, at the cost of being distinctive, it sacrificed simplicity. These were problems that had to be fixed.

            The first and foremost quality of a good flag is its simplicity. Mars describes this as being so easy to remember that it can be reproduced by a child. However, I couldn’t imagine that happening with our current flag. The squiggly lines require much concentration in order to draw and the fleur-de-lis is all the more challenging. Therefore, in my personal redesign of the original, I took out the fleur-de-lis altogether and straightened the lines. The person this city was named after may have been French, but he was not particularly significant for Saint Louis the city and so there is no point in honoring him in the flag. I also got rid of the white outlines on both sides of the blue lines for they had no symbolic values and only made the complexity of the flag rise. The resultant outcome contains only the converging rivers, but in my opinion, it is sufficient. The rivers played a great role in the exploration of Lewis and Clark during their expedition. The rivers also provided the people of this city with abundant amount of clean water. It may be a bit less distinctive than before, but it is undeniable that this flag is simpler and the core meaning of the flag is retained.