Send in the flags, cowards

This is the new design of the Maine state flag that will be voted on by the public in November!

Personally, I feel that this design will be spectacular flying across a state that has become a second home to me as I've been living in the Portland area for work this summer. I can safely say that if I was registered to vote in Maine I'd be thrilled to have this as my official state flag. I only hope it passes this coming fall. It's been interesting seeing all of the various 'pine tree flag' designs that several members of the community had made. While I didn't see all of the submissions, just this specific design being worked on, I'm told that many of the submissions will be made public for viewing.

I'm not the biggest fan of the fact that the green is two-toned, an opinion I held in the final drafting meeting, but I believe that it may grow on me. It's a nice touch that will be visible up close and look nice on TV broadcasts while not being distracting from a distance. And from a distance you'll still be able to tell that it's a green eastern pine tree. I like the asymmetrical tree, it’ll stand out a lot. The background color, which is called ‘buff’ is also distinct and should look great at a distance.

The design prompt was to base the modern flag on the 1901 pine tree design. And the panel of Maine judges went through a lot and I mean a lot of design configurations for the pine tree. They were happy with this one, the Maine Secretary of State was happy with this one, and NAVA was happy with it after we redesigned the tree several times.

I'm excited to say that I was a (very small) part in the final drafting process this past Sunday (Aug. 4, 2024) with the designers and more experienced NAVA members. In attendance was our amazing Secretary Ted Kaye, and the Maine Secretary of State: honorable Shenna Bellows, and the designer Adam Lemire, among other vexilographers. I'm happy I can finally talk about this publicly, even a day not talking about it drove me crazy.

As I was present for the final drafting meeting, for any interested in more details can send me an ask or reblog and I'll respond as best I can. I won't have all the answers seeing as I'm not exactly the most senior member of NAVA, but also consider this as a general blog AMA.

What even is this flag ordering, Tumblr?

Like, they'll combine their nation's flag (or some national symbol) with the rainbow stripes. The Brazilian one haunts me to this day but that's a long story. They're usually done in a quite lazy manner, cause it's not really something you can do super well and not many people try.

But I have just found one that is lazier than the rest! Are you ready to see it?

Re-design of my tribes flag, thoughts?

Did this just for fun, and also because I thought our original flag is kind of ugly. I like the seal, but a flag shouldn’t be a seal slapped onto a rectangle, especially with just our name at the top in bold white.

CGP grey taught me better than that.

So here we are.

Explanation for everything:

The large eagle in the middle is there because eagles are very important to my tribe, messengers of prayer. We also own an eagle sanctuary for injured birds and distribute their sacred feathers.

The fire has two meanings, one for our name and role, Fire Keepers/People of the Place of the Fire, and the fire has seven points for the seven fires prophecy. (A very important part of our tribals history migrating across turtle island)

The eagle has a three pointed crest on their chest, one for each tribe in the three fires council that makes up the Nishnabe

The crest is in a circle, not just as a reference to the original seal but also for our dancing circles at powwows.

And finally the boarder is a medicine wheel for the four directions, seasons and sacred medicines.

[ID: Three panel "Pills that make you green" comic.

Panel 1: An ochre person with a triangle-shaped body is standing on a stage in front of a curtain.

Ochre: Hey everyone and thanks for showing up today. As you're all probably familiar there's been a lot of discussion about the green pride flag, and how lots of people in the community aren't really represented by it. And while there are a lot of flags for subcommunities we're really missing a unifying one

Panel 2: Ochre person pulls away the curtain, revealing literally just the regular real life Pride flag to the crowd of a variety of people with a skew towards a greenish majority

Ochre: So I'm going to suggest we use this rainbow flag, as a symbolic representation of the full color spectrum

Panel 3: Zoom in on the ochre person looking vaguely dejected, saying "oh..." as criticisms come in from the crowd:

"I feel that this does a poor job representing mauve people"

"Get better at vexilology" [sic]

"That looks so weird"

"There's barely even any of the original green flag left!"

"Way too complicated"

"Orange people don't even have anything to do with green rights"

"What's next, charred brown with lava cracks in it for refugees from Former Italy?"

End ID]

"This green represents our land, and this blue represents our sky" please! Every state has land and also sky! Please pick something that actually represents your state and not every state ever!

This post brought to you by the Minnesota state flag redesign finalists.

Oh yeah, plants, rivers, the existence of stars in the sky, these sure are things that scream "Minnesota" to me.

I actually do want to give the stars specifically a pass because "The star of the North" is Minnesota's state epithet.

But like you compare these to, for instance, Washington's proposed flag redesign:

TIL that Italy has a war flag... That's exactly the same as their regular flag, just with the aspect ratio changed.