MINNEAPOLIS — Another chapter has closed in the journey to redesign Minnesota's state flag and seal. The deadline was Monday, Oct. 30 at midnight for potential designs.
In their regularly scheduled meeting, the redesign commission announced it received more than 2,600 entries during the one-month period.
"I think we're all excited to look at the submissions, I'm sure," Luis Fitch said. "There's going to be a lot of them, so we're going to have to be patient."
Fitch is a voting member of the commission as well as a representative of the Council on Latino Affairs. For Fitch and the 12 other voting members of the commission, patience will indeed be virtue as they parse through a design that could replace the current one, which is pretty common, to say the least.
"The flag fails in its fundamental purpose," Ted Kaye of the North American Vexillological Association said. "It's indistinguishable from half of the other U.S. state flags."
Kaye, who spoke in the meeting as an expert source, said Minnesota's standard seal-on-blue-background flag is extremely similar to more than 20 other flags in the state.
With simplicity in mind, some of the submissions that are already on display on newMNflag.org, do fit the bill.
Kaye, who has guided Utah recently through its flag redesign process, and has served as a consultant on dozens of redesign efforts for cities and even countries, summarized by saying the design part is only really a sliver of the pie.
"It's 10 percent design and 90 percent politics and public relations," Kaye explained. "You're playing a very important role in the design process. The overall process, is a PR and political process."
In an attempt to stay away from politics, Anita Gaul, a voting commission member asked if purple would be a bad color to use on a flag. She said she would certainly expect to see a lot of submissions using purple, given that Minnesota is home to the Vikings and Prince.
"I've also heard that purple is not a good color for a flag? is that true or not?" Gaul asked Kaye.
Kaye, explained that while purple is an unusual color for a flag, it is more commonly used than in the past, as producing purple flags now does not coming with a higher price tag. He also explained that purple is darker, and tends to fade easily.
However, he cautioned against drawing upon the Vikings for flag inspiration.
"When a city or state has poor civic or state symbolism, that void is filled by sports teams," Kaye said. "But sports teams they can move — they can break your heart. I don't think the Vikings are ever moving out of Minnesota, but I would hesitate to tie your state's symbolism to a for-profit sports franchise."
The commission's next step is to whittle the 2,600+ submissions down to five finalists. The final deadline is January 1st, before the legislature votes on the design.
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