flagdesign.nz

Documenting the redesign of the New Zealand flag

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“The fit of peak — and the need to vote”

This is an interesting article from Michael Symthe on Design Assembly with some useful answers to common questions about the process as well as his view on voting in the referendum.

Here’s the section on voting:

So how will you vote?

In the ‘Be part of history’ pamphlet delivered to every household the organisers have compounded their bias toward existing symbols by asking ‘What is uniquely kiwi to you? And identifies us as a nation?’ Nevertheless, being a responsible citizen who values the hard-won freedom to participate, I will exercise my democratic right.

It is essential to vote according to the rules of preferential voting. Not voting, or spoiling your vote is the same as voting for the most popular choices. Feel free to agree or disagree but this is how I plan to vote:

  1. Red Peak because it is the only simple, abstract, strong, flagish design on offer, it invites a range of positive interpretations and it will build meaning through association over time.
  2. Koru because it is simple, abstract and draws the eye (and an improved version that avoids the monkey tail look might emerge).
  3. Silver Fern (Black and White) because it honestly engages with the stealthily evolving Brand New Zealand programme which should have been openly discussed.
  4. Silver Fern (Black, White and Blue) because it at least references black as a national colour and the All Black logo.
  5. Silver Fern (Red, White and Blue) at the bottom of the list because it is complex, cliché coloured and the most tea-towelish.

If Red Peak wins the first referendum I will vote for it in the second. If a Lockwood flag wins the first I will vote for the existing flag in the second and hope that Australia changes theirs.

I couldn’t agree more.

Ideally there would have been a different koru, a more abstract silver fern and no Kyle Lockwood flags, but this is what we’ve got and in my opinion a logical way of ranking the alternatives. It’s what I’ll be doing as well.

Radio NZ Interview: “Final Four” Alternatives

Last week I was invited to talk about flag design and the “four alternatives” on Radio NZ.

The final four flag alternative designs have been unveiled. The Flag Consideration Panel chose 40 from more than 10 thousand designs that were submitted, and Cabinet signed off on the final four. Talking through the designs is Dan Newman. Dan is the former Global Marketing Design Director at Xero, and the curator of flagdesign.nz, a website dedicated to documenting the redesign of the flag.

Apart from excessively using the word “umm”, I refrained from employing profanity to describe the situation and briefly discussed my disappointment in the announcement. I’ll write more as time permits about the long list and final four alternative designs.

For now, you can hear my thoughts about the process and four alternatives on the Radio NZ site.

“Wind test: What do our flag designs look like in a raging southerly?”

Following on from the mention in stuff.co.nz, Sam Hurly from TVNZ emailed Jarred and I for comment about the flag process and our work on the flagtest.nz site.

In contrast to Stuff, Hurly got in touch directly and asked clear questions I was easily able to respond to. Firstly, I explained some of the reasoning for creating the site:

“The official site didn’t provide any context to view the flags other than the main gallery,” Mr Newman told ONE News.

“All the submissions were being reviewed and debated as static designs, without considering how well they’d perform in the wind or without any.

“We wanted people to be able to ‘test’ if a flag worked in context.”

I also took the opportunity to briefly outline my view on the process and “long list” announcement:

He said both Mr Bishop and himself, who both submitted their own flag designs, were keen on a flag change that “represents a more contemporary and multicultural view of New Zealand”.

“Unfortunately the process has been a farce. There was no official design representation on the panel and the recently announced ‘long list’ is basically only a few different ideas presented in a variation of colours.

“Only two designs don’t feature a fern, Southern Cross or koru. Having 40 designs so similar to each other doesn’t show the depth of ideas and quality of designs that were submitted,” he said.

“There’s many bold, simple and creative ideas that didn’t make the cut. As Gareth Morgan mentioned, the majority look like tea towels, not flags.”

Was great to see TVNZ quote me precisely and present an alternative view highlighting some of the issues with the process and “long list”.

“Flag Designs Fly In Wind”

Was interesting to see a mention on stuff.co.nz last week about the work Jarred and I did creating the flagtest.nz site:

Having trouble visualising what the new flag might look like from a rectangle of pixels on your computer screen?

Two Wellington web designers have solved that problem.

Dan Newman and Jarred Bishop have created a website, flagtest.nz, which shows various flag designs either blowing in a “raging southerly wind”, or hanging down without the breeze.

That’s where the “journalism” ended. Following these comments and images of flags was this terrible line:

Are you on Team Maori Design or Team Fern for a new New Zealand flag?

I had no involvement in the article on Stuff, but feel obliged to point out and distance myself from the stupidity of the above line. Fairfax don’t give “credit” to a particular journalist for this article so there’s no individual author to blame. As I mentioned on Twitter, I’ve long been disappointed with the quality and standards displayed by Fairfax.

“Your Questions Answered”

Over the course of the submission process and as the roadshows have been underway around New Zealand, members of the panel have been filmed answering “your questions”. The team behind the process have done a great job getting these produced and addressing some of the questions raised. The responses are insightful, albeit brief (the videos are all under one minute long) and suggest the panel are informed about the concerns New Zealanders have been raising.

The questions range from “Why doesn’t the Government just decide?” which is answered by the Panel Chair, Emeritus Professor John Burrows, to “Isn’t this really disrespectful to our soldiers?” which is answered by Lt Gen (RTD) Rhys Jones.

All of the questions are listed below with the name of the panel member linking to their corresponding answer on YouTube, however you can also view all the videos on the flag.govt.nz site.

If you’ve asked any of the above or are interested in the panel members answers I encourage you to watch the videos.

— https://www.govt.nz/browse/engaging-with-government/the-nz-flag-your-chance-to-decide/your-questions-answered

Design Assembly: Michael Bierut Interview

Design Assembly landed a great coup interviewing renowned Pentagram partner Michael Bierut. The entire interview is interesting, however his thoughts on the New Zealand flag process are worth highlighting here.

On the New Zealand flag consideration project and alternative design:

That kind of thing generally doesn’t end well.

On the other hand if you look at the history of enduring pieces of graphic design that we now look at with some affection or admiration, a lot of them come from very strange processes. They weren’t all by professional designers that were appropriately compensated financially. They were the result of amateur competitions and people who didn’t know what they were doing going off and doing things. Somehow it just sticks and develops and goes on.

No one appreciates a professionally managed design process more than I do and I love being treated with respect by my clients when I am working with them. It pains me to see people behaving cynically or dismissively or undervaluing graphic design and what design can be.

In that sort of situation there are different ways of looking at it. It’s like a lottery — someone will win and maybe the more good solutions will prevent the really bad from happening.

It’s an interesting exercise. Why not try and design something nice and see what happens.

Part of it with things like that, is that you get so poorly briefed and there is no feedback. The client or whoever is commissioning the work isn’t really engaged and not committed to making it work too. People think falsely, like love at first sight they’ll see it and it will be perfect. It’s amazing how rare that is, it’s really, really rare.

I’ve done a lot of very good work where the first time or the first few times were a failure and you don’t get that opportunity when it is a competition. It’s everyone heaving these things in the direction of what they think the bulls eye is and no one has any idea of what success looks like.

— http://www.designassembly.org.nz/articles/michael-bierut

Fiji Extends Flag Consultation

This week Radio New Zealand have continued reporting on the process to change the flag in Fiji with fascinating news the consultation period will be extended.

The Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama announced plans for a new flag to be decided by a nation wide competition earlier this year, saying he wanted it hoisted on the 45th anniversary of independence in October.

In a statement he has announced the consultations will now be extended until the last day of the year and the new flag design will be considered by Parliament when it convenes next year.

The latest developments suggest the “final” 23 designs will be either added to with new submissions or some of the original submissions (pre amalgamation) might even be considered.

If you haven’t been following what’s happening in Fiji, I’ve previously written an overview about the Fijian Flag Design Process.

— http://www.radionz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/277591/fiji-extends-flag-consultation,-more-designs-on-the-way

Campbell Live Show

Campbell Live recently ran a poll of more than 20,000 people responding to the question “Do you think New Zealand needs a new flag?“ The overwhelming majority (88%) answered “no”.

On a more positive note, the segment was balanced and showcased several of the submissions as well as interviewing Dick and Otis Frizzell. Their thoughts on the process and the designs they’ve been creating proved interesting. I’m not convinced their submissions are quite right, however it’s great to see prominent artists involved in the process.

It was also interesting seeing Hamish Keith discuss how flawed he believes the process is, as well as his choice of flying the ‘original’ New Zealand flag, The United Tribes.

Throughout this and many other reports on the process, the topic of money and the cost of potentially changing our flag gets plenty of attention. This coverage was no different, with several people interviewed from different organisations outlining how far the money would go if spent elsewhere.

UPDATE: Sadly since writing this the Campbell Live show has been cancelled. A recent article in The Herald asking “Who killed Campbell Live?” covers what happened and sums up the impact John Campbell and his team have had.

You can watch the Campbell Live segment about the flag below.

— http://www.3news.co.nz/tvshows/campbelllive/does-new-zealand-care-about-a-new-flag-2015051919#axzz3af0se7iM

Design Assembly Interview

The lovely Design Assembly team inteviewed me about flagdesign.nz and the New Zealand flag design process.

When should a country redesign its flag?

I personally don’t think there’s ever a right or wrong time to redesign a country’s flag, however there are often significant historical events that mark their introduction along with plenty of debate. Two common examples of other countries who have changed their flags are Canada in 1965 and South Africa in 1994.

The change in Canada was marked by the “Great Canadian Flag Debate” where polls had suggested nearly 80% of Canadians wanted “a national flag entirely different from that of any other nation, and 60% wanted their flag to bear the maple leaf.”

In South Africa the change coincided with a new democracy and Nelson Mandela’s presidential inauguration. As the country’s years of apartheid finally came to an end, the new flag captured this historic event with the redesign visually representing the concepts of “convergence and unification”.

Often a change in flag is relatively minor, for example, additional stars, or an updated colour that in most cases is not controversial. One reason given for changing the New Zealand flag is how similar it is to Australia, however it’s unlikely an additional star or change in colour will suffice!

Since there is no significant event that this would mark, it makes the process much more challenging – the only brief is to distill our culture down to one symbol or design.

— http://www.designassembly.org.nz/articles/flagdesign-nz