CouveCast
Welcome to the City of Vancouver Washington's official podcast. Each episode is a mix of city insights, stories, behind the scenes and some fun along the way. Real talk with people shaping Vancouver's future.
CouveCast
CouveCast episode 5 Interview with the chosen flag designers!
At long last meet Brooke Nugent and Nathan Hunter. Their two designs have been combined for the new City of Vancouver flag! Also joining me is Laura Shepard, Communications Director for the City of Vancouver. We'll talk about the new flag and what it means for our community.
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 3:Welcome to CouveCast, the City of Vancouver's official podcast. I'm your host, Steve Harris, and this is our final episode in our series about creating a new flag for the City of Vancouver. Today I'm joined by Brooke Nugent and Nathan Hunter, whose combined designs have been chosen for the next City of Vancouver flag. Congratulations to you both. And also with us is Laura Shepard, Communications Director for the City of Vancouver. Thank you all for joining me. So, uh Laura, on our last episode, I talked about the six finalists. You worked with the flag selection committee. How difficult was it to narrow this down to one flag? And can you tell us why it was decided to combine these two designs?
Speaker 2:Oh, it was really difficult for the committee to narrow it down when I think back about when they started with 138 flags all up on a wall, looking at them and grouping them and talking about each flag thoughtfully. And then as they did that work to winnow them down and to narrow them down, and then they landed on, actually they landed on eight flags that that they that they thought had something to it. There were flags that they thought, okay, this flag is great on its own. And then there were flags that they also selected that there were elements on those flags that they thought would work well on other flags. And and they were really what made it difficult was that each flag really was special in its own way. And you can see the intentionality and the thoughtfulness that went in into every flag. But ultimately, when they thought about, you know, what makes a good flag according to you know the standards that you that you should adhere to when you are designing a flag, you know, can you see it at a distance? Is it easily recognizable? Uh is it something that somebody could easily replicate? And is it meaningful? Um, it really, as they started to narrow the flags down, it it was still hard, but the decisions became more clear-cut. Um so yeah, so it was hard, but then as they as they started narrowing it down, it really became very clear which way, which way they were wanting to go and which flags had the most meaning, meaning to them, which then eventually landed them on both Nathan and and Brooke's flag, and and that combined story of both of those flags together. And then, well, what if we put this on this flag? Or what if we took this piece off this flag and and that conversation around, you know, should the Fort be on it, should the Fort not be on it, should another symbol be on it? Um, will somebody understand what that looks like when when they see it? And as they had these conversations around it, it was still hard, but it was it just became very clear. The more they started to winnow the flags down, the more it became clear what they needed to do. And I gotta say, it was really uh quite fascinating to be sitting in the room with them all along the way, listening to them have that thoughtful conversation about the flags, and in that final meeting when they were getting ready to like actually call the question about what flag they were going to pick. I mean, everybody kind of just stopped and took a moment, like, like we're really gonna do this.
Speaker 3:I like that description, the combined story.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And that, and that, you know, uh, I wish you two could have been in the room for that, just to hear the conversation about the strengths of the elements from both of your flags and how both of those flags told this story that had such meaning to the committee, and they felt based on the community feedback, it was both of the the the element, uh, Brooke, your element of the Fort of the clock tower, and then eventually that layer of they're like, wow, we see the Grant Street pier in that, and then like we see this arrow in that, that layer on your your flag, Nathan, to uh replace the icon you had on there. It just told this story that the public wanted to hear. They wanted to hear the story of the river, they wanted to hear the story of the Fort, they wanted to hear the story of these landmarks and icons, and they wanted to hear the story of the people who have lived here since before we were here, and just that linkage to the river, and and it was just I could feel I'm sorry, I feel like I could talk all day about it, but. Could I jump in?
Speaker 4:Um I think a lot about uh symbols, and I'm very interested in like how symbols gain meaning. Um I call that semiotic, which is like a fancy like $10 word, but but how why symbols come to mean things. And like one thing that I've come to believe is that uh the symbols that stand the test of time that the next generation can see something different in them, and they they pass that on, and so it can continue to sort of evolve to meet the times. And so um I just wanted to say, like, I was really impressed by Brooke's by Brooke's uh emblem that she designed, which is exactly the sort of thing I couldn't like as outside my skill set. Like I did very simple shapes. Um but the fact that it could it looks like the Fort, but it also looks like the Bell Tower, and that depending on like which of those you might feel more of an attachment to both people, whether they you know spend more time at the fort or spend more time at Esther Short Park, they can look at that and think about it connects with their memories and what they like about Vancouver. And I thought that was like that was like a very good element, and it like I I'm really happy that it can be have that flexibility.
Speaker 3:So that's a great segue. So, Brooke, uh, let me ask you, what what made you decide to submit a design? I know it was kind of last minute for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I I had thought I had started thinking about it when it was announced, but I didn't submit until 11:59 that last night. Um, but I remember seeing it posted on Instagram, I think it was, and I am a designer, like for work, um, multimedia designer. And I had never designed a flag before, and I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna go for it. Like, how many times am I gonna have this opportunity to try to create a flag for a city? So I just want to try something new and throw my hat in there.
Speaker 3:And how long did it take you to create that?
Speaker 1:Oh gosh, well I did it. Well, I have my full-time job, so I would spend like late nights, like eight to ten p.m. at night, and do that a couple nights here and there, and then I'll get frustrated. I'm like, oh, this isn't good, it's too simple. I I actually brought my sketches today if you wanted to see some of my terrible like um first iterations. But I I don't know, I guess maybe total, I know it's gonna sound crazy, but maybe like eight to ten hours. I know it sounds like it's a lot because it looks so simple, and that's why I was so hesitant. I was like, this is my final product. It I put so much time into it, but it's changed so much, and it doesn't look like I spent a ton of time on it.
Speaker 3:Clearly the effort.
Speaker 1:But um yeah, the symbol is really what I focused on a lot, and I I appreciate you picking up on that and then the the team also, um, because one of my favorite things to design is logos, and so I'm always kind of thinking like, how can I represent as many things as possible in one little symbol? It's not easy to do. So it looks very simple on the surface, but I there was a lot of thought, intentional thought behind it.
Speaker 3:Definitely. So Nathan, I want to ask you the same question. What what uh made you decide to submit a design?
Speaker 4:Um well, uh I'm kind of the opposite of like the contrary, like I don't uh design things for a living. I'm a software engineer, I'm very uh mathematically and sort of logically minded, although you know, when I was much younger I did quite I did visual art as kind of like a hobby, and I still do some.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Um but I'm I've been into flags for a while, just as like a kind of nerdy thing I'm into. It's fun to like learn trivia about them and memorize them and you know, discuss the relative merits of them. And I actually had uh designed a flag for Vancouver once just for fun a long time ago.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 4:Um and I very much didn't want to submit it because someone, when I shared it on the Vexolology subreddit, someone pointed out quite rightly that it had strong resemblance to uh, I won't get into details, but a flag for a political movement that I very much did not agree with, and I was like, oh, I see that now. Oh, that's that's bad. That really does look like that. Oh no. Um so I didn't use that. Um But uh I was always into flags and I was always like hoping that Vancouver would revisit its flag design because I thought, you know, it it could use, it could, it could be stronger, like the the way we had. And so I was always pretty sure I was gonna participate in any effort like this if one came up. But then this particular year that you guys happened to do it coincided with uh my son uh without too much encouragement for me, also getting really into flags and talking about uh talking about their sort of relative merits. You know, there's a YouTuber he likes using the flags, and so you know he started talking about flags. I was like, okay, I can't look my son in the eye if I don't at least submit something. Right. So I um I didn't think uh I didn't think you know I had that big of a chance. I just wanted to say that I had thrown my hat in the ring and that you know that I participated. And so um because my skills are software and programming, not so much doing Photoshop or design, um I happened to know that there was a neat software library that lets you sort of programmatically build images using the programming language that I use for work and is my favorite programming language, uh, which is what Haskell, my boss, would definitely want me to say he told me he wanted me to say it. But um and so I was able to sort of design it declaratively where I said sort of like put a rectangle here, put a rectangle here, and I sort of specified like how big of a rectangle and put it there, and then building it out of simple shapes, which is why my design like which is why I designed was three rectangles, two triangles, and one square. Some math behind yours, yes. Yeah, yeah. And so I w I couldn't do something where you get those sort of like it it looks effortless, but it's you know, and how much, how long was your effort?
Speaker 3:How long did you uh take designing this?
Speaker 4:I think a couple hours on sort of a weeknight, so like like two to three hours to sort of like hash out the program, and then on week and then so I got it where I could sort of tweak some parameters, like I can pick colors and I can sort of change the relative ratios. And then I was sort of at a couple hours of trying out different ratios, saying that's that's too big, that's too small, and um running them past uh my wife and my son. And uh I I do want to credit my wife with the bit of feedback that I really needed to kind of make it pop, which is that um until my wife talked to me about it, the point was like all the way to the bottom. So so there wasn't that sort of little gap there. There wasn't that little gap.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 4:And that was, you know, I'm I tend to think things like I want things to go all the way to the edge, I want to like draw within the lines. She's like, no, it needs it needs to be a little off. It's like, okay, so I need to add a new parameter.
Speaker 3:She had some good input on this.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. So I needed to add a new parameter to sort of say how much off the bottom should the point be. And then once that once that uh was done, I was pretty happy with it. It was just a matter of picking the colors, although uh ultimately the committee decided to pick their own colors, which I was pretty happy about because I was picking from among the palette that it gave us.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And the colors they picked um popped a lot better than the ones in the palette. And that was great. I had some feedback, I was like, uh give us some brighter, poppier colors, and that's what they did.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah, actually, if I can hop in there, Steve. I I think that the the color, the the the the color of uh the the palette that we that we originally offered up for people to use, what became very clear in in when we when we received all the flags from people is that m a lot of the flags, if you looked at them, they all had elements of green, blue, and white for the most part. But there were variations on the on that theme. And and when we were looking back at it and when I was reflecting back on it, we probably in retrospect wouldn't have prescribed the palette, but I bet you most people because when they thought when they thought about those meaningful elements, you know, the river, how lush Washington is, and um, you know, uh, you know, white kind of being this neutral space, I bet you we would have landed in that same place. And um and and the thing about the the fine-tuning the colors, um it's it's uh that was that was really fascinating to me too, you know, getting the advice from from NAVA around standardized flag colors and probably would have changed how we asked all the all the people to what colors to use, because I would we probably would have started out either with that color palette that's more traditional for flags, and now that I've actually seen that sheet of all the standard flag colors, we probably would have started there instead of with the city's palette.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:So yeah, and and uh so one thing if you read Wikipedia pages about flags, is that you'll you'll find that um the sort of the good flag, bad flag guidelines, one of the things they say to use symbols that show commonality is that a lot of regions have either you know uh a format that they repeat with different colors, like the Nordic Cross or a Saltire, or um colors that they use in different combinations. And so um you'll read about uh Pan-Arabian colors, pan-Slavic colors, pan-African colors, and blue, white, and green are sort of, I think it's kind of nascent, but they're sort of the pan-Cascadian colors because a lot of people in the Pacific Northwest are influenced by the Doug flag, which is sort of supposed to be a flag. It's not a flag for any like state or you know political entity, but it's a flag for the whole region of the Pacific Northwest, which always includes Washington, Oregon, usually includes British Columbia, and sometimes includes bits of Northern California, and sometimes when they're really feeling adventurous, little bits of Idaho. Um but most people are familiar with it as um the Timbers Army flag. The flag that people fly when they're at soccer games for the Timbers.
Speaker 3:Uh let me ask you this, Nathan. Uh what motivated you to design a new flag for our community?
Speaker 4:Well, um, I never like I didn't move a lot as a kid, uh, but I moved at pretty like kind of even steps, so that almost all my life I felt like you know I was the new kid somewhere, or the new, I was new to town somewhere, right? Is that you know I when people ask me where I'm from, I don't usually have a good answer. I can tell them where I was born, um, but I didn't live in any one place super long time to feel like I had roots there. Although my uh on my dad's side, my family's lived in this region, like in sort of southwest Washington, off and on for quite a long time. Um and so when I initially moved to Portland and then up here, it was sort of like a homecoming to a home I've never been to before. And then I've lived now longer in technically unincorporated Clark County, like just outside, like outside the city limits, but it says Vancouver on my address.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right.
Speaker 4:For longer than I lived anywhere else. And like, even though uh it wasn't necessarily a purpose, I do feel like I've been starting to put down roots and feel like I've been integrated in the community. And so um I'm a big believer in sort of communities as their own thing. Like I I I think of myself as a citizen of something, not as a cons like a consumer of products. Right. Right? And so I wanted to have feel like a connection and feel like a participant in the city, not just sort of, you know, a resident that you know the city is made up of the people, and so you can contribute where you can.
Speaker 3:Have a voice there. So I want to move on to uh the event of the the flag raising with the six finalists before this one was chosen. That was kind of an exciting event. How did that feel?
Speaker 1:Oh, that was so fun. I remember, Laura, when you called me and you told me about that event, I was like, I'm gonna be out of town that day immediately after I got off the phone. I went to my boyfriend, I was like, I'm switching my flights, we're coming back the day before. I don't care if it's midnight, we got home at midnight, and I was also very sick when I came, but I was like, I'm going to this flag thing because I just it's like how many people, like I said, get to say that they've have were a finalist for a city flag design. Like I had to be there. So I was super excited, even though the wind wasn't super cool and cooperative that day. It was so fun to like symbolically raise the flag, both of them, and just meet all the other designers. And yeah, so that was super fun to be. Yeah, and yeah, that was a fun day.
Speaker 2:I was so excited when when I saw all of you guys come down the sidewalk, and I was just so stoked to meet all the all the finalists and get to you know see some of you and your families and your and and and your extended and extended support systems. And I thought, ah gosh, I I'd be lying if I didn't say I was probably at one point like a little choked up over the whole thing. It was just so it was just so cool to be to be at that point. And I think of like big accomplishment. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean from 138 to six.
Speaker 2:It was, it was, and I think I think a lot about legacy too, and I was thinking, wow, whoever's flag is going to get picked, you are now part of city history. Yeah, that's right. And how how cool was that?
Speaker 3:Everyone's gonna know it and see it. So going from that moment, then all of a sudden to being in council chambers, uh, talk about that moment. How did that feel when you they're actually good acknowledged acknowledging this by the city and the mayor?
Speaker 1:Crazy. Well, when you to called me and told me like we officially picked a flag, that was like the best way Halloween could have started. Because I think it was Halloween. And I was like, oh my gosh, I'd have to go call my mom and you know, tell her. Um and then of course she wanted to come to the city council, and it was just so cool to see like be have it officially accepted and just be there. And then, like I told you before this show, just people sending me articles like, hey, you're in the news, and I'm like, yeah, because I don't know if I I didn't mention it here yet, but I didn't tell anyone. I know I told you I didn't tell anyone in the beginning that I was gonna submit only my boyfriend because he lives with me, so obviously he would know, but I was like, I'm just not gonna tell anyone, I'm just gonna do this, and I didn't when the 138 flags came up, I was like, Oh, there are so many better ones here. Mine doesn't stand a chance. And so yeah, when you called me, that was a huge surprise. So surreal to to see it be adopted officially.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. Uh I mean, there were several dates in there, but like when we got when I got the call, like uh it was you know, it I had we had uh my in-laws over, uh, because my my son's birthday was around that time, and so like that was kind of the big deal. So I was like, I kept it kind of quiet because I didn't want to steal his thunder. Uh but but yeah, so I I had to kind of keep quiet about it, and so like every like there was kind of like the slow trickle of afterwards, like, oh yeah, I should I should tell some people. I should tell some people that it was it was picks. Um and so it was telling people a bit of a time, and it it was you know, it was pretty cool being in in the council chambers, you know. Um and you know, it was you know a full meeting of the council, and so it was also exciting. Like I'd never been in a city council meeting before, and so like fun. Um seeing just seeing kind of how easy it is to sort of like go to go to city council and say your piece, like there were other issues being discussed at that time. Yeah, and so I was really interested in hearing what people had to say on those issues, like although I did have to kind of leave as soon as soon as uh the the business I was there was concluded because I had to catch a bus to get to get you.
Speaker 3:You had somewhere to be. So uh Laura, for those that uh didn't attend that meeting or know too much about it, can you just kind of give us a brief uh uh description of what happened at that uh meeting when their flags were um accepted formally accepted by the mayor.
Speaker 2:Oh, sure. So what they did was they routinely pull things off the consent agenda when they want to have more of an explanation or they want to have more of a discussion. And I knew they were they were wanting to do that to really mark that moment with the flag. So what we did was we prepared a short presentation uh where our uh chair and vice chair of the flag committee, uh Rose and and Hector respectively, they had an opportunity to talk about the process that they went through and uh why we picked the why they picked the flag they picked, what that flag meant. So we basically just gave council a little bit of a briefing about the journey we had been on. And the other thing that was really important about uh about the adoption of it is it gave council an opportunity to meet the two of you and have a moment to celebrate that that moment and and really kind of I guess kind of think about, like I said, the kind of you know, the part of Vancouver history that you two are now a part of, that they were a part of just because they're on council, but then they're also this council who now picked a new city flag after almost you know 30 years and long time. Yeah, and I I don't think that moment was lost, lost on the I think you could clearly see their excitement. Yeah, yeah. And then and then when we finished that presentation, they they voted on it, they voted on it unanimously, and then uh they invited both the both of you up and uh and uh and uh we had pictures and just had a bit of a celebratory moment. And uh yeah, so that that is what happened, that's what happened on on today, yeah.
Speaker 3:It was a great time. So so now that it's happening, uh what are your hopes that uh this will the design will be displayed uh in the community? Where do you hope to see it besides council chambers?
Speaker 1:Oh I okay, what's crazy is I didn't even really realize that we had a city flag before this all started, and now I'm seeing it everywhere. So when I drive into Laura's office. Yeah, when I drive into the city of Vancouver, I'm like, oh my flag is gonna be there. Like it says Vancouver, whatever, and the flag is there next to the state flag. So I'm excited to see it there personally, and then yeah, wherever else it is, but that's that's the main one for me.
Speaker 4:Um I'm really excited. My hope is that people will kind of uh remix it and and use it as a sort of uh uh as part of a visual language for Vancouver, right? Um I am you know I've had to kind of take a step back uh from Reddit for a lot of reasons, like I was kind of spending too much time too much, like being being the topic of the discussion, maybe like, man, this social media is not great. I should take I should say I should take a step back from this. But while I was still following it a bit more, um I saw some people's like sort of uh sometimes that what they were trying to do was be kind of mean and like ah like make fun of this, but they took this the symbol out and put uh a shark with a laser beam on its head. And I thought, well, that actually kind of speaks to the strength of the design because like this person wants to take this, you know, admittedly a bit a political symbol. It's a symbol for a city, a city is a polis, right? And they're gonna make their own political statement with it where they're gonna take out a bit of it and swap it out with something else, and it sort of becomes part of the conversation and part of the way we communicate with each other. And I think that's really cool. Yeah. Um, although I'm I shudder to think like some of the purposes it'll be put to that, you know, are I'm excited to see that like that that people will use it to communicate with each other how they feel about the city, or like a sense of uh a Vancouver sort of spin on other sort of groups.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Do you mind if I jump in there a little bit too? No, yeah, go ahead. So so my hope for the flag is much much much like what what you two are discussing with it, but my hope for the flag, and this is why I was very deliberate about saying this at council, is that we I'm hoping and we hope, the city hopes, that people will embrace this flag, want to fly it at different places, fly it either in their places of business or the bars or you know, at their homes or like, you know, sometimes when kids go away, I should say shouldn't say kids, when young adults go away to college, hopefully they, you know, hopefully they'll want to take a flag of their hometown with them and hang it in their dorm room walls. Um, you know, we we intentionally are not trademarking our flag because we want people to be able to use it. You know, if some local business wants to create stickers or if they want to create coffee mugs or beanies or whatever, we want to make that space for that because we're really excited about this flag as a symbol, and you see flags, use of flags, like my my go-to flag I talk about a lot, is the is the City of Chicago's flag. That flag is just so easily recognizable and it's on so many different different items, and people, you know, I think Chicagoans really embrace possibilities are endless. Yeah, really embrace that flag. And and I want the same thing for this flag. I not only do I want you guys to have the pride of seeing that fly flag fly that flag flying, but when you go when you go up on I-5, I also want you and everybody to have that same pride when you see that flag on the flagpoles, when you walk into, I don't know, what the you know, I won't say the name of a place, but you know, a place a restaurant, you know, and small business. Yeah, and they've got that flag hanging on their wall somewhere. And and as a city, I'm looking forward to how else we're going to use the flag. I'm already thinking of different ideas about how we can get people more engaged with the flag. I'm thinking about running a contest in our newsletter about show us, show us your flag, because some colleges do that. They people take their college flag and you'll see them on top of like mountaintops or flag up. Exactly. So I'm excited about doing things.
Speaker 3:And I've mentioned this on every episode of the podcast. So one option of this could be tattoos. I mean, someone could give a city of now. What better way for the designers to get a City Vancouver flag tattooed than I've got to do that?
Speaker 2:I have heard, I will not say the name, but I have heard of one individual who is strongly considering doing that. And I said, let me know, and I can make sure you get the right outline drawing of the flag so you so it looks and actually that's I'd like to see that. Actually, that's what um Ted Kaye always tells us is that you know your flag has hit when people are getting a tattoo.
Speaker 3:So uh Laura, I want to ask you um what are next steps of officially recognizing the City of Vancouver flag?
Speaker 2:Well, the you know, we so council adopted it officially, and now some of the next steps are is is we've been trying to catalog as we've been going along where are all the flags and making sure that those places have new Vancouver flags, and then we're also looking for opportunities. Well, where should there be a flag? It's like hmm, like I think about the conventions that are just down the street. I notice they have a few flags, a few flags hanging off the side of the building, and since that's a city facility, I'm gonna see about getting a Vancouver flag uh flying off of that. Um other next steps will be coming up soon. Um, you know, we're going to be uh officially raising the flag above City Hall uh on the on the 28th, the day after Thanksgiving. And then the right after that, we're gonna go across the street and part of this beloved community event. We're also going to introduce the flag again to the community and there'll be a few people there. Yeah, and you know, celebrate the two of you and your design and and and give you your prizes. And I mean, really, it's it's kind of endless because the city before didn't really do a lot with its flag. And I think part of that is you know just over time, you know, people leave, people come and go, and then it's just this symbol that's hanging in chambers or hanging off a flagpole. But when I think about Vancouver and our our brand and our reputation and what people think about us, you know, there's something about building excitement with a new flag, and and I'm looking forward to getting creative with that. And um yeah, so that that's a little a little bit excited.
Speaker 3:Exciting, yeah, looking forward to all of this. Well, we're about out of time, so I want to thank you all for joining me again and congratulations again to Brooke and Nathan. Thank you. 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.