CouveCast

CouveCast episode 3 Interview with Ted Kaye Part 2

• Steve Harris

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In our continuing series about the new City of Vancouver flag, part two with renown vexillologist Ted Kaye about flag submissions and the decision-making process that will ultimately lead to a new flag for our community.  

Speaker:

Welcome to CouveCast, the City of Vancouver's official podcast, hosted by Steve Harris. Each episode is a mix of city insights, stories, behind the scenes, and hopefully a few laughs along the way. No jargon, just real talk with the people shaping Vancouver's future. One episode at a time.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to CouveCast, the City of Vancouver's official podcast, hosted by me, Steve Harris. This is our next episode in our series about creating a new flag for the City of Vancouver. Today I'm joined for the second part of our series with Ted Kaye. He was joined uh joined us in our last episode. So if you didn't have a chance to listen to part one of this, um go back and listen to that because it's very interesting information. He is a renowned vexillologist and secretary of the North American Vexillological Association. He finally uh he literally wrote the book on how to design a flag. His book, uh Good Flag, Bad Bad Flag, has helped many governments and organizations create new flags. And he has traveled the world providing advice on creating flags. Well, Ted, welcome back. Thanks for having me back. Yeah. So we're going to just kind of pick up where we left off. Um Was there ever a flag design that took an unexpected turn either in how it was received or how it came together?

Speaker 1:

Sure. We've seen hundreds of cities redesign or adopt new flags in the past few years. Hundreds of cities. One of them stands out, though, an unexpected turn is Cedar Park, Texas. Cedar Park has a history that in the American West, and barbed wire had a significant role in its history, and it had a design that had bubbled to the top, and they adopted it. I think it was a horizontal by bar, two different colors, and then three big X's connected by a straight line, which invoked barbed wire. They adopted this flag, and the public response was so negative that Cedar Park, Texas rescinded that flag and went back to not having a flag. Oh. That was a big surprise to us. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr. Okay. So yeah, a little bit of a turn there. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Right, right. It was sort of this conflict between history and the negative symbolism in that history. Okay.

Speaker 2:

You helped facilitate the session and narrowed 138 uh entries, uh submissions, down to a handful of finalists. Uh what was that process like and what stood out to you during those discussions?

Speaker 1:

My role was to help the uh flag committee understand the basic principles of flag design so that they knew what they were looking for when they reviewed those 138 submissions. I also impressed upon them the idea that their job was to come up with the best designs, not just fine designs that people had submitted, but to combine, tweak, polish those designs to come up with the best options for the City of Vancouver. Okay. So their task wasn't just a popularity contest, but it was more deeply getting into what are those designs looking like, what are the themes in them, what resonated to them as representing Vancouver, and helping them understand the basic principles of flag design, simplicity, meaningful symbolism, few colors, no letter or seals, and distinctiveness, and apply those to those submitted designs and come up with a smaller number that they could polish, hone, combine, and then eventually expose to the public. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Speaker 2:

And as far as you can see, uh on a good track so far with those.

Speaker 1:

Well, I commend that group for their excellent work during the session. We spent most of the day learning about flag design and then going through those 138 submissions, narrowing them down, discussing them, understanding what the people of Vancouver were saying in their mix of flag designs that they had submitted, and then coming down to uh a smaller group that then they would work on farther. They did an excellent job at working together, hearing from the flag design side and representing the people of Vancouver and what Vancouver would be represented by in this flag. Excellent.

Speaker 2:

So I do want to ask you um a question about the your book, uh Good Flag, Bad Flag. And that you you've helped in a number number of jurisdictions uh with this process that you've just described. Um is it required for for municipalities to go by this book or is it more of a guideline and they sort of can have the choice to do what they want to do?

Speaker 1:

Um you do make me laugh with that question because uh uh it'd be nice if it were required. Um because um the majority of new city flags are really poor designs. Yeah. Um that many folks just don't get the basic purpose of a flag, which is signaling at a distance. It needs to be discernible, you need to be able to make out what's on it, and it needs to be memorable. You need to remember what it represents. It's not the ultimate repository of every single thing in the city, everybody gets represented on it, kitchen sink. It's it should be a very simple object. But most, you know, the majority of new city flags don't follow that. So it would be great if there were some kind of um registry or rules uh overseeing city flags, but we're a very independent democratic country, unlike, say, the Czech Republic or Croatia. Uh in places like that, there's a government ministry that oversees civic symbolism, and a city that wants a flag or wants a new flag has to get its flag blessed and approved by the government ministry, which then enforces certain conventions or or a style that uh leads generally to effective flag design. Okay. But not so in the United States. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: So here it's kind of up to the jurisdiction, really. Absolutely. Uh up to the jurisdiction. And I I like to say I like to say that um we've seen since the publication of the book Good Flag, Bad Flag, and really it's a booklet, it's 16 pages long.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Um that uh in most flag design contests when cities hold a contest, and it's about half of the half of the cities that do flag design do they do it in that way, there are always going to be great designs submitted. Because people read the book, people who Google flag design will find it. Sure. But we've done a great job of educating the flag designers. We've done a horrible job of educating the flag choosers. So what happens is that well-meaning but misguided city councils or flag commissions or or who's ever doing the choosing haven't studied up on what makes an effective flag design. And so they'll choose overly busy, fussy, or or they'll put the city seal on the on the flag. Just something I think is good. They exactly. And I you know, I I uh my analogy is building a bridge. You know, when you're when you're gonna build a bridge, say, say across the Columbia, you know, you pull people, uh, what kind of bridge do we want to have? Is it do do you like the idea of a suspension bridge or a tide arch bridge or a truss bridge?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

But once you've decided on that big picture, you have the engineers and architects design the bridge. You don't you don't ask city council members, well, how much steel should we put in the bridge?

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

You you get the experts to help you do it. And that's that's where um I think many of these processes go off the rails. Okay.

Speaker 2:

Um what's uh what's one flag you've helped design or evaluate that holds special meaning for you?

Speaker 1:

You know, I I'm from Portland, and Portland's flag was first designed in 1969 by Doug Lynch, who was the uh former chair of the Portland Arts Commission in the 1960s and sort of the dean of graphic design in Portland for many years. He taught generations at the Museum Art School. And ironically, talking about bridges, after the Markham Bridge was built over the Willamette in 1964, uh Doug led the charge to make sure that the next bridge would not be an erector set bridge, but a nice, beautiful bridge over the Willamette. And it's the Portland Arts Commission's intervention that made sure we got the Fremont Bridge as the next bridge. So, but in design work, Doug was the designer of the Portland flag for the uh Portland Arts Commission in 1969, and 30 years later, he revisited that design and uh talked about how he might upgrade it, and I helped persuade him to go to the city council and get a redesign of his original design passed by the city council. So Portland went from having a mediocre city flag to having a world-class city flag because its designer got to do some things that he didn't get to do in 1969 and had the uh initiative to go back to city council in his late 80s to get it uh updated. Fantastic.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'll have to check that out. I'm not sure if I can remember that one by memory, but I'll check it out. Um if you could redesign uh a national or state flag, uh which one would it be and what would you um what would you change?

Speaker 1:

Well, I think it's a tie between Washington and Oregon. Uh Washington's an easy one. I take this seal on the state of Washington and simply simplify it, get the words off and have a stylized Washington face on Washington, and that'd be a great flag. And that's actually easy to do politically because it's simply upgrading the existing flag. Sure. Um but the the one if if you forced me to choose, I'd say Oregon. Oregon has the most challenging state flag because we are the last state with a two-sided flag. We've got the uh center part of the state seal on the front of our flag, along with the name of the state, state of Oregon and 1859. Okay, yeah, yeah. I've seen that. That could be kind of confusing. Well, it's especially if you're thinking of like blowing in the wind or whatever. Absolutely. But on the back, we've got a completely different thing. We've got a beaver on the back. So Oregon State flag is the most expensive state flag to make. Um and it's you know, if you you have a picture, what's Oregon State flag look like? You need to have two images, everybody else have one. Um it's just I think it's bragging rights for stupid. Uh some people love it because it's different, but if I were to redesign the Oregon State flag, um again, the easiest way to do it is to upgrade the design of that beaver and put it on both sides.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

That's what I do.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Um what we find is that people tend to conflate their love of the place and their love of the symbol of the place. That the flag represents the place. If you love the place, then you love the flag. And then criticizing the flag feels like criticizing the place. Oh. And people get tied up in that. And uh when I talk to folks about flag design and adoption, I say flag design is 10%. The it's 90% politics and public relations. And that's what would that's that's where push will come to shove in changing, say, the Washington or Oregon flag. I have been involved in several other states' flag designs, a couple that have been successful recently. And uh my saying that it's 10% design and 90 nine percent, 90% politics and public relations has certainly proven true. Okay.

Speaker 2:

Um I read that you have a flag collection that has more than that's that's amazing. 500 flags from all of the world. What when did you start a display collection?

Speaker 1:

I started collecting flags as tourist mementos, and I buy them in the places that I I go to, and those are national flags, state flags, city flags, tribal flags, historical flags, flags of institutions, flags of events, flags of organizations. And uh And you have all of these, all 500 still? I do. I I fly a different flag every day from my house, and I have an electronic reader board that tells my neighbors what flag I'm flying. Oh my goodness. Where do you fly with them? Do you have like boxes of them? I I do. I have those big plastic bins with the flip lids on them, and I have them in an upstairs bedroom, and I just I I have a a clothesline that goes from the upstairs bedroom window across the street to a tree, and I just put a flag out there and uh across the street, and my neighbors get to enjoy them. I started doing that during COVID to entertain them.

Speaker 2:

I think if there was a slogan for you, it would be the flag guy.

Speaker 1:

That's amazing. I was at the neighborhood block party this weekend, and uh, you know, everybody says, Well, where do you live? Where do you live? And I would describe where I lived, and I said, But I have flags in front of my oh, that house.

Speaker 2:

I like that you have a digital display that tells what it is, because not everyone's gonna know all of those flags. Yeah, that's exactly that's incredible. Um so what keeps you passionate about flags after all this time?

Speaker 1:

Well, flags you know they're there it's it's history, it's art, it's geography, it's politics, there are a way into all kinds of disciplines. But I I think we we all resonate to flags because they're colorful, we're we're visual people, they represent places. Um if you look at at the newspaper, I I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, and every day there's one, two, three, four pictures that have flags in them. They're eye candy, they represent things visually. And we just we just resonate to flags.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And once you start looking at them, it's kind of hard to stop.

Speaker 2:

And if they are done right, and hopefully by the booklet, then they'll be easy to remember and uh maybe a little more popular uh for in businesses and whatnot.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. The the principles of flag design uh are principles, they're not rules, and uh there are notable exceptions to those those principles, but flags that follow the principles tend to be great designs. My point is there are great designs that don't necessarily follow the principles. Uh but but if you depart from those principles, do it with with purpose. Do it for a good reason.

Speaker 2:

And and so my question to you would be uh when the city of Vancouver finally has a chosen flag, are you gonna get a copy of that for yourself to add to your collection?

Speaker 1:

I hope so, because I've been involved with it and I've certainly been to Vancouver. Um I I I remember uh 50 years ago I had a little um card that showed I was from Oregon, so I didn't have to pay sales tax when I came to Vancouver. Can't do that anymore. But I'll fly the flag.

Speaker 2:

Excellent. Excellent. Well, Ted, uh I want to thank you again for joining me today as well as the last episode. Thank you so much for your time for all of this, and we sure appreciate it. Thanks for having me. It's great. Uh if you want more information about the design and selection of the new city flag, be sure to check out the website at cityofvancouver.us /flag. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend, leave us a review, or fly your civic pride a little higher today. Until next time.