“Taking a leaf from Canada’s flag debate”

The NZ Herald has published an article today by historian Grant McLachlan with his opinions about the flag process. I’d previously been curating examples of the local media coverage, but had not discussed it of late. This pause was mainly due to the numerous self-promotion pieces surrounding particular flag submissions and a general lack of in-depth reporting critiquing the process, our identity and the flag designs. Thus, it was pleasing to see some interesting points made in McLachlan’s piece.

McLachlan starts off by highlighting the symbols present in the Canadian submissions and their similarities to the themes seen in the New Zealand process.

In Canada during 1964, initial designs proposed by a “special flag committee” were rejected. Canadians had submitted 3541 designs. Of those, 2136 contained the maple leaf (their silver fern), 408 contained Union Jacks, 389 contained beavers (their Kiwi), and 359 contained Fleurs-de-lys (their Koru/Southern Cross).

This is a fascinating example of another country’s struggle with a bias towards existing symbols and how they subsequently featured prominently in the Canadian submissions.

The flag.govt.nz team provided some “insights on flag designs” from the New Zealand submissions where we can see the themes and ideas used to represent “what we stand for” or more appropriately our people, country and culture. Unsurprisingly these themes (for example; peace, multiculturalism, independence growth, strength and sport), were illustrated with symbols influenced by their existing usage in New Zealand’s visual language. The Southern Cross (featured in 2919 submissions), Koru (1397) and Fern (1375) made up roughly a third of the submissions, with the Kiwi (440) trailing behind with the Union Jack (461). Note: of a total of 10,000+ submissions, many featured more than one symbol.

The flagpost.nz site by Thomas Le Bas & Design Democracy provides further in-depth analysis of the symbols and colours used in the submissions.

The public mind has offered up a vast variety of icons and symbols; Moa, Matariki, Waka, and even the odd laser-Kiwi and bicycle. However, the most common symbols across the flag submissions have been quite clear. These have been the Southern Cross, the Fern, and the Koru.

You can read more about the insights related to the submissions symbols & meanings along with a detailed breakdown of the use of colour throughout the designs on flagpost.nz.

Unlike New Zealand, the sentiment for change in Canada was very different. As usual, Wikipedia has plenty of information about “The Great Canadian Flag Debate”:

In 1958, an extensive poll was taken of the attitudes that adult Canadians held toward the flag. Of those who expressed opinions, over 80% wanted a national flag entirely different from that of any other nation, and 60% wanted their flag to bear the maple leaf.

It was still controversial, yet the majority of those who wanted a new flag were aligned with the idea of using the maple leaf. However, as McLachlan points out, the public mood changed on the announcement of the process.

Canada’s popular opinion was as fickle as ours. It went from being strongly in favour of a flag change to being strongly against when their Prime Minister announced the process to consider alternatives.

In this YouTube video titled “Canadian Flag Design Jeered” you can see the controversy captured by the media at the time.

One of the most amusing sections in McLachlan’s article is his opinions on our Prime Minister John Key’s (flip-flop) views in support of different designs. They illustrate how political both the process in New Zealand and Canada became, despite attempts to position it as anything but…

Key’s inconsistent public comments are the result of internal party rumblings. His original “doodle” was a silver fern on a black flag. He then strangely surrendered his support for a black flag due to Isis also having one.

Key surrendered our national colours to terrorists.

What I suspect really happened was that the National Party hierarchy protested at the removal of the Southern Cross from the flag, which appears on their party logo, at the expense of a silver fern, which appears on Labour’s.

I’ll write more about the use of black and the ISIS flag at some other point, for now though I find McLachlan’s thoughts about the potential impact of political party logos hilarious.

Finally, the thing that stood out the most and with which I whole-heartedly agree with McLachlan on is the irony that many of the final forty flags do not meet the published guidelines:

The greatest flaw in the process is that, of the 40 flag designs selected by the Flag Consideration Panel, only a handful meet the criteria of their design guide and their video describing “What makes a good flag design.”

Here’s part of the transcript from the “what makes a good flag design” video that DINZ helped create with the Flag Consideration Panel:

The Designers Institute of New Zealand have outlined five principles of design and how they can be applied to flags.

These five principles are: simplicity, colour, the rule of thirds, symmetry and asymmetry, and context.

The first is simplicity.

Flag design is an exercise in simplicity: the composition of basic elements in a defined field, a reduced colour palette, and no language.

The process should be reductive. It’s as much about what’s not included as what is.

No doubt there will be further critique of the process and finalists on the “long-list”. For now, the parallels to The Great Canadian Flag Debate are interesting to consider.

Fijian Flag Design Process

With the launch this week of the newfijiflag.com site, I thought it timely to review the process underway in Fiji to change their flag. If you’re unfamiliar with their current design, Wikipedia has an overview about the “Flag of Fiji”.

Alongside the activity occurring in New Zealand, Fiji are racing ahead and are on track to change the design later this year. There’s been lots of great coverage with Radio New Zealand documenting the process and the Fiji Sun providing a local view on proceedings. Most recently the focus in the media has been on the short-listed designs.

Submissions & Short-listed Designs

So far 47 entries have been short-listed and then a further 23 presented to the public for consideration. The newfijiflag.com site features these 23 designs after more than 2000 were submitted. The flags are presented with an overview of the symbolism identified within the designs. Below is a portion covering the use of colour:

• “Fiji Blue” provides continuity from the 1970–2015 flag, remaining the “banner blue” of the national anthem. It represents peace, serenity, and freedom, as well as the Pacific Ocean. It shows solidarity with all island nations.
• Yellow represents radiance, life, sustenance, and a new beginning. It recalls the sun and Fiji’s place as “the land of the first rising sun” and its tropical location.
• Dark Blue stands for peace, prosperity, trust, dignity, and intelligence. The colour of the deep ocean, it represents the depth of Fiji’s culture.
• Red represents passion, strength and energy of the Fijian people.

Each flag is presented above a form where you can respond (regardless of whether you are a Fijian citizen) by selecting that you strongly agree through to ‘strongly disagreeing’ with the design / symbolism as well as providing any additional comments.

The 23 designs are variations on particular themes using a similar aesthetic and colour palette. Whilst in most cases the ideas and symbolism seem sound, there’s some overly detailed flags and interesting arrangements that don’t appear that conducive to being replicated at small sizes. I don’t want to appear overly critical, however many of the final 23 are not well drawn. The two designs that stood out were Number 47 and Number 49. NB: Weirdly those numbers do not match the URLS.

UPDATE 1: Since writing this Radio New Zealand reported that a committee member overseeing the Fijian flag redesign has anonymously confirmed the 23 designs were “amalgamated”:

The National Flag Committee member says the group reports directly to the Attorney General, Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum, and was told to go back to choose more after it selected five final designs.

This isn’t unique to Fiji, with a similar approach taken with the South African Flag. A public competition failed to find an appropriate solution, then several design studios were asked to consider submissions and present alternatives, also failing, before Frederick Brownell designed the flag we recognise today. As a reminder the process in New Zealand allows for this as my article about the terms and conditions outlined.

The inability to decide from public submissions does have an impact on the perception of the process and members of the public in Fiji had evidently been raising their concerns:

Given the designs that have popped up thus far, a lot of people have shared their opinions that they don’t think that they were part of the process in designing the new flag. After 1000-plus entries that went in it seems like the committee decided to come up with their own design.

— http://www.radionz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/275868/fiji’s-flag-council-confirms-designs-are-amalgamated

Earlier in the process the Fiji Sun published details about how the submissions would be accepted by mail, online (email) and in person over the course of several months. Interestingly they also stressed “you do not need to be a professional designer to make a submission”:

You do not need a computer design program and you do not need to be a professional designer to make a submission. Sketches and drawings will be considered the same as electronic designs. All you need is pen, pencil and paper to participate.

— http://fijisun.com.fj/2015/03/05/how-to-submit-designs-for-fijis-national-flag-competition/

UPDATE 2: Radio New Zealand have reported that the final 23 designs are now no longer being considered as “locked in stone” or “final” after a public backlash.

Announcement & Background

Following the initial announcement the media coverage about the change in Fiji was a mixture of concern and opposition with the “Fiji flag process slammed as ‘nonsense’” and “Opponents of Fiji’s future flag ‘ready for jail’” a sample of the articles online.

Radio New Zealand documented the “Concerns in Fiji over process for new flag” (Audio), highlighting the lack of a “mandate to change the flag without a referendum” and that the Prime Minister has stated he wants to retain the colour blue as part of the redesign:

As Prime Minister, I have an open mind about the final outcome. My preference at this stage is to retain the existing “Fiji blue” background – but without the Union Flag and Shield. But I’m excited to see whatever ideas the Fijian people come up with.

— http://fijisun.com.fj/2015/02/03/pm-officially-announces-fiji-flag-will-be-changed/

Initially the Fijian public weren’t involved in the decision to change the current flag, only to be later told a referendum would be required to make changes to the flag in the future. Radio New Zealand reported on this in the article: “Fiji’s new flag laws seen as ‘ironic’”. This means the current change will be confirmed and approved by the Prime Minister, whilst any future changes will require a referendum. A petition gathered 3000 signatures requesting the current change was only approved through a referendum, however it was ignored.

To make matters worse, the current flag designer Tessa Mackenzie has spoken out explaining her disappointment with plans to replace the design.

The process underway in Fiji and New Zealand has often been viewed as a distraction from other important issues both countries face. With increasing water and electricity cuts and a reported 45% of the Fijian population living below the poverty line, there’s clearly work to be done that won’t be solved by a new flag.

Unlike New Zealand, Fiji and their fearless leader Frank Bainimarama plan on changing the flag to coincide with a significant event, the “45th anniversary of Fiji’s independence”. The Guardian provides plenty of background in their opinion piece: “Postcolonial? Yes. But Fiji’s new flag will also be a break with the chiefs’ power”.

Bainimarama has framed the flag change as an effort to break free of the shackles of Fiji’s colonial past. The flag that has existed since 1970 features the Union Jack – a nod to the British monarchy’s role in governing the islands from 1874 to 1970.

The Fiji Sun added further details saying “The final design should represent the theme: Fiji forward, Fiji as one people.”. Whilst the NPR also reported on the process and goals behind the change in flag stating:

The move is intended as unifying. The country has two major groups: ethnic Fijians and ethnic Indians, who were brought over by the British as laborers to work on Fiji’s sugar plantations in the 19th century. Relations between the two communities have sometimes been tense.

— http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/03/02/390164844/fiji-launches-competition-for-new-national-flag

Finally, the process in Fiji has been a fascinating precursor to what might happen in New Zealand. The issues with “amalgamation” and public involvement have been interesting to document. We’re ultimately much more fortunate in New Zealand that the process is democratic, although as the coverage surrounding both processes outlines, change is difficult and polarising.

The renowned vexillologist Ted Kaye, author of “Good Flag, Bad Flag” and part of the flag committee in Fiji was interviewed by Vice Magazine about the process:

It’s a common refrain heard when a flag change is proposed: that people like the old flag, not necessarily because of the inherent characteristic of that old flag, but because that’s the flag they’re familiar with and that’s the flag that’s represented them.

— http://www.vice.com/en_au/read/a-flag-expert-on-how-to-design-a-nations-flag-491

Overcoming that relationship with the familiar has been difficult in Fiji and no doubt will continue to be in New Zealand as well.

Media Coverage

Like the local and international coverage New Zealand received, many media companies have reported on the process in the Pacific. For posterity here’s a selection of articles covering the Fijian flag redesign:

ABC News: Fiji flag designer Tessa Mackenzie disappointed by Frank Bainimarama’s plan to replace it

NPR: Fiji Launches Contest To Design New National Flag

The Guardian: “Postcolonial? Yes. But Fiji’s new flag will also be a break with the chiefs’ power”

Radio New Zealand: “Fiji flag process slammed as ‘nonsense’”

Radio New Zealand: Concerns in Fiji over process for new flag (Audio)

Radio New Zealand: Opponents of Fiji’s future flag ‘ready for jail’

Newsmax: Union Jack No Longer Belongs on Flag; Country Will Redesign It

Fiji Sun: PM Officially Announces Changes To Fiji Flag

Fiji Sun: New Flag For Top Forum?

The Telegraph: Fiji to remove Union Jack from flag, PM says

Portland Flag Association: A New Flag for Fiji—A Work in Progress

Vice: Here’s How to Design a Country’s Flag

“Run It Up The Flagpole…”

Over the last few weeks The New Zealand Herald has published several articles relating to the flag process. One included a poll with a list of 15 flags to choose from.

Only 1800 people responded to the poll with The Herald deciding the results suggested ”Traditional flag designs prove to be most popular”. Nearly all of the options are “traditional” with 10 of the 15 designs including the Southern Cross, 7 of the 10 including either a fern or koru, and 2 of the 10 including a kiwi. All of these are established and recognisable symbols of New Zealand.

Unfortunately nothing unique was presented as part of the poll. This is a worrying sign that interesting alternatives are not getting exposure alongside the obvious submissions.

The Results:

1. Heritage Minimalist 4.4%
2. New New Zealand Flag 3.97%
3. Long White Cloud 6.06%
4. Three Islands. One Land 1.13%
5. Silver Fern Flag Kyle Lockwood’s original 23.06%
6. Kiwi: Air Force 1.4%
7. Design 1 0.38%
8. Matariki Long White Cloud 3.81%
9. Manawa 9.12%
10. Silver Fern 10.57%
11. Silver Fern with Southern Cross 25.15%
12. United New Zealand 6.49%
13. Kiwi, Aotearoa, Oceans East & West 0.54%
14. Contemporary 0.65%
15. Long White Cloud Southern Cross 3.33%

The Herald also discusses the lack of engagement and low turnout at roadshows around the country. Countering that, the article “New flag debate firing up online” highlights some of the visiter numbers from the flag sites:

There had been almost 350,000 visits to the flag.govt.nz website where the designs are on show and 123,000 to the standfor.co.nz website. More than 2000 people had visited information stands. There had also been more than 202,000 visits to the Facebook page in the last week.

UPDATE 1: I suggested on Twitter that more of the analytics be made available and have submitted a request to the flag.govt.nz site team to see what information can be published.

UPDATE 2: The flag.govt.nz site team politely declined my request for information. They have valid security / privacy concerns about sharing particular details so will publish what data they can soon. I look forward to seeing what they are able to share.

Local Media Coverage

Since late 2014 there’s been a lot of local media coverage surrounding the proposed redesign of the New Zealand flag. So far it’s falling into four distinct types of stories:

1. Polls: Polling results and the number of New Zealanders for or against the change.
2. Money: Coverage of the cost and information surrounding the process / referendums.
3. Submissions: Design critiques and flag reviews.
4. Opinions: General coverage and opinions.

I’ll summarise a few articles and reflect on the impact the media is having throughout the process thus far.

Polls

Several media companies in New Zealand have been busy polling and have produced numerous headlines documenting how many people are against the flag change. TVNZ published these articles: “Three quarters of Kiwis against changing flag” and “Two-thirds against changing flag” in 2014 and most recently The New Zealand Herald published; “Flag poll message clear: Leave it alone”.

There’s clearly a lot of mileage in posting poll results and thus gaining page views (more advertising revenue) due to incensed New Zealanders clicking and commenting on these articles. These comments deserve an entire post documenting the wide range of opinions…

The last article by The Herald suggests from “750 eligible voters” only 25% of New Zealanders said yes and 75% said no to changing our flag. When asked about an alternative flag the results suggest a silver fern would be preferred:

The last article by The Herald suggests that of “750 eligible voters” only 25% said yes to changing the flag, compared to 75% that said no. When asked about an alternative flag the results suggest a silver fern would be preferred:

The silver fern was the front runner for an alternative flag in the Herald poll, preferred by 45 per cent. In second place was the Southern Cross with 18 per cent support.

The timing of the poll, and much of the media coverage surrounding it, aligned with the centennial ANZAC commemorations, as well as interviews with members of the RSA presenting their reasons for not wanting to change the flag.

Polls about changing our flag go way back and you can see a good overview on the New Zealand Flag Debate page on Wikipedia. In 2013 and 2014 polling saw the highest results voting for change. The Listener ran a poll on their site in March 2014 asking “Do you think the NZ flag design should be changed?” The poll was part of an article by Sally Blundell called, “A symbol solution” with live results suggesting 62% of people said “Yes, it’s time for a completely new look.” Information about how many people responded to the poll is unfortunately unavailable.

Despite that recent result from The Listener, you can easily make an informed guess that at this time the sentiment is very much “leave it alone”. What is unclear from all of the current polling is the makeup of the poll respondents. Would the results be different if it were just people under 30 responding? If we split the results by residents and citizens would there be a difference? Does a particular ethnicity in New Zealand want a new flag more than another?

Asking these additional questions (or having access to that data) would help to better determine who is represented in these polls and whether all of New Zealanders views are proportionally reflected in the results.

Money

It’s no surprise some of the first media coverage surrounding the process was dedicated to the cost of the referendums and the $640 per day payment the Flag Consideration Panel would be receiving.

That pales in comparison to the $25.7 million¹ estimated cost associated with the entire process. It’s hard to find an accurate break-down about how this cost will be allocated, although The New Zealand Herald article, ”Taxpayers’ $25m bill, even if flag stays”, does provide some detail:

The publicity blitz around selecting the new designs, which begins on Anzac Day next year, will cost $6.7 million, while the two referendums will cost $17.3 million. Other costs will take the overall bill to $25.7 million whether the flag is changed or not.

The cost of replacing existing flags, uniforms and government references to the existing New Zealand flag is estimated to be at least $2.69 million². For context (and this is not a criticism), that’s slightly less than making cycle trails in Northland.

TVNZ have several articles online about how the flag change is a “gross waste of money” and that it is “absolutely ridiculous”. This tone is representative of most of the coverage surrounding the cost of the flag process.

Responding to the debate about the cost, it has been interesting to see Sam Morgan tweeting his opinions:

Worried about spending $22m to change the flag? It is surely preferable to spending $22m and not changing the flag. #nzflag

— Sam Morgan (@samfromwgtn) May 12, 2015

Although he quotes a different amount (it is likely to be $25.7 million), it is worrying thought that spending this amount of money may indeed not see a change in flag. That shouldn’t be the reason for changing, however it a compelling one.

Morgan also puts the estimated cost into perspective with some rough sums on how the amount is only a fraction of what is spent in the New Zealand budget:

According to my calculations, the flag budget (~$22m) is about 9 hrs of our social security budget. #nzflag

— Sam Morgan (@samfromwgtn) May 20, 2015

Submissions

The New Zealand Herald ‘helpfully’ point out the flag will need to have “wow factor”. Surprisingly the first comment in response to the article nails it:

This is our national flag not some cheap advertising campaign, it needs dignity not wow factor. We look ridiculous enough on the world stage as it is.

I’ve yet to see a well articulated article from the major New Zealand news publications about design and the importance of it in the process. Let me know if I’ve missed something…

Many of the submissions need to be seriously critiqued, others easily disregarded. At this point none of the major media companies are reviewing specific concepts (other than the obvious parodies and child-like designs).

To be fair, The Listener and Radio New Zealand have stood out with more in-depth reporting on the process, but are yet to throughly review and critique the submissions. At the point of writing there are over 2000+ entries in the submission gallery which does make that hard work!

The majority of the local media coverage about the submissions has been similar to that of the international coverage with lists of flags, often those poorly designed.

You can see some of the local articles summarising submissions below:

TVNZ: One flag to rule them all: But which flag?

NZ Herald: Flag will change … but to this?

NZ Herald: Kiwis reveal their flag desires

Radio New Zealand: Best of flags, worst of flags

Radio Live: 20 Best and worst designs for new NZ flag

Opinions

One area of the media I’ve not touched on is Stuff Nation, a reader submitted “news” and community section of the stuff.co.nz site.

There have already been several posts about individual submissions and opinions on these designs. I’ll be reviewing designs separately, but most interesting is the platform this is providing for designs and entrepreneurial kiwis trying to promote their ideas.

One example of self-promotion is a post by Zolan Davis who writes about “Reimagining the New Zealand flag”. The post features two designs that have been submitted for consideration by the author, Union Tika, and Te Punga. For a more extensive list of Stuff Nation flag posts there’s an “Assignments” section of the site asking “What should be on New Zealand’s flag?” where many individuals are reviewing and promoting submissions.

Stuff is not alone in providing a media platform for people to promote their submissions. The New Zealand Herald has published an article by Michael Smythe entitled “A flag to stand out from the crowd” where he outlines his rationale and the background to his submission.

Ultimately anyone can promote their flag design, however I believe New Zealand media companies have a responsibility to remain impartial and fairly promote a wide range of options.

Finally, it will be interesting to see how the media coverage evolves as the Flag Consideration Panel starts to whittle the submissions down to four designs for the first referendum.

International Media Coverage

As the submissions continue to be loaded into the flag.govt.nz gallery, there’s been growing international coverage about the “designs”. The Guardian picked up on the process and published an article highlighting “15 Quirky Contenders”. It’s hard not to be embarrassed by such coverage, however pointing out how poor or “quirky” some of the designs are is important. It got worse though as The Guardian collated some of our other most recent international media coverage:

Remember, by way of context, this is a nation in which the prime minister admitted to pulling a woman’s ponytail, a man was convicted of attempting to take out women’s teeth during sex, a corpse on a gurney rolled out of a hearse and onto a highway, a pet sheep was stolen and spray painted with an Isis logo on one side and “420” on the other, a runner drank her own breast milk after getting lost in the bush, and a parochial swimming pool had a six-week ordeal with a “serial pooper”.

And that’s just in the past couple of months. How do you capture those eccentricities in shape and colour alone? These bloody legends gave it a decent stab.

BuzzFeed posted another listicle of “The 20 Best Designs For The New Zealand Flag”. Number 14: “Fush & Chups” is an extremely funny and clever concept, however I have less tolerance for some of the other submissions.

Both BuzzFeed and The Guardian are clearly having a laugh with these articles. Sadly there’s been little critical coverage internationally about the process. It seems it is much easier to post links to hilariously bad submissions than write in-depth articles on identity, culture, vexillology, and design.

I’ve collected some of the other articles the flag redesign process has being mentioned in below for posterity:

Vice: This Is What Happens When You Let New Zealanders Make Their Own Flag

Huffington Post: New Zealand Asked The Internet To Design A New Flag, And This Is What They Came Up With

BBC News: The colourful contenders for New Zealand’s new flag

RT: Kiwi bird vs. Union Jack: New Zealand suggests new national flag

Daily Mail: A robot Kiwi and sheep on a rainbow: After New Zealand government asks members of the public to submit designs for a new flag, we reveal the more unusual suggestions

The Star: Could this become New Zealand’s new flag?

The Australian: New Zealand flag: designs from the public flood in

CNBC: Could a kiwi with laser eyes be on this nation’s next flag?

Gizmodo: 9 Designs That Could Finally Replace New Zealand’s Controversial Flag

The Independant: We don’t think New Zealanders are taking redesigning their national flag entirely seriously