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 2 Interview with Ted Kaye Part 1
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In our continuing series about the new City of Vancouver flag, we talk with Ted Kaye, renown vexillologist and author of Good Flag, Bad Flag about what goes into designing a good flag.
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 1Well, welcome to CouveCast, the City of Vancouver's official podcast, hosted by me, Steve Harris. This is the next episode in our series about creating a new flag for Vancouver. Today I'm joined by Ted Kaye, renowned vexillologist and secretary of the North American Vexillological Association. He literally wrote the book on how to design a flag. His book, Good Flag, Bad Flag, has helped many governments and organizations create new flags. And he has traveled the world providing advice on creating flags. Well, welcome Ted and thank you for joining me. It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks. So let's get right into it. What a lot of people are asking, and I personally didn't know much about this until I started doing the podcast, but what is vexillology? Vexillology is the study of flags.
Speaker 2It comes from the word vexillum, which is the Roman word for flag, Latin flag, and ology, the Greek suffix for study of, study of flags, vexillology. But my wife likes to joke that it's vexillology because it's vexing and silly.
Speaker 1Okay. Sounds perfect.
Speaker 2And so how did you become interested in flags? I started collecting flags as travel mementos. I buy a flag when I travel, it's my travel trophy, and I have two rules for my collection. The first is for me to own a flag, I have to have been to that place. And the second rule is the flag has to come from that place. So I have a whole bunch of full-sized flags that represent my travels.
Speaker 1Nice. That sounds awesome. And what inspired you to create good flag, bad flag? Did you develop this on the five principles of the flag design?
Speaker 2I was at an International Congress of Vexillology in Victoria, BC, next to Canada's Vancouver. And there was a workshop on flag design where flag dealers were talking about the terrible designs that people were bringing to them to have made. And everybody in the session was complaining about the poor flag designs that the public came up with. And I stood up and said, How dare we, as flag experts, criticize people's flag designs if we don't tell them what is good flag design? I volunteered to compile a guidebook. And I hasten to say that I'm not the author, I'm the compiler, because I looked at what 20 different people who knew more than I did about flag design had written, but I condensed and compiled their work into a short and sweet guidebook, which I titled Good Flag, Bad Flag, as a catchy title. And how did that go over when you suggested that? People loved it because finally there was a mass market piece that could be handed over the counter of a flag store or handed out at a flag commission or to a city council that would create a list of basic principles that people could easily understand to create a good flag design.
Speaker 1And so just so people know, since they can't see the book book firsthand, but when you say book, it's really, I mean, how many pages?
Speaker 2It's a booklet. It's 16 pages, and I lucked into the fact that 16 pages is the minimum number of pages for a book to be able to be mailed media mail by the U.S. Postal Service. Perfect. But it's really a booklet because that makes it manageable for people. Many people who had written on flag design had gone on and on and on, and it was people's eyes had glazed over. This book condenses flag design into five basic principles that anybody can understand.
Speaker 1And and so uh quickly let's go through those. What are the five principles?
Speaker 2Well, in very brief terms, there's simplicity, meaningful symbolism, few colors, no lettering or seals, and distinctiveness. Those five principles, if followed, are very likely to deliver an effective flag design.
Speaker 1Okay. With that in mind, how can symbolism be powerful even in minimalist designs?
Speaker 2It's important to understand the fundamental purpose of a flag. The fundamental function of a flag is signaling at a distance. There are other uses of flags, ritual, ceremonial, decorative, but the fundamental reason that we have a flag is that we put something on a piece of cloth that's going to be seen at a distance, flapping, maybe on both sides, and we need to be able to make out what's on that flag and then remember what it represents. So two things discernibility and memorability. So flag design is actually form follows function, and if the function is signaling at a distance, the form of the flag, the design, has to support that function. So discernibility and memorability. Now to your question about meaningful symbolism, all you really need is something that when people see it, whether it's an object or a color or the way the field is divided, people will remember, oh, I've been told that represents Vancouver. I can make out which flag is Vancouver's in a display, say, of Washington City flags. So a fort, a V, a bend in the river, colors green and blue and white, those kinds of things can be the triggers for remembering Vancouver. The flag is not the ultimate repository of all the values and history and content of the entire city. It's just a signaling device.
Speaker 1But simple enough to where I think it might even be in the book or suggested by the book that a third grader could draw the flag. It's simple enough to where it's it's easily remembered. Absolutely.
Speaker 2A flag should be so simple that a child can draw it from memory. Now that's not the purpose of that isn't to enfranchise children, but it's a good rubric for making sure the design is simple enough because if a child can draw it from memory, then it's probably simple enough to be discerned at a distance and memorable enough to be recognized as representing the place that it symbolizes.
Speaker 1And perhaps if it's if it's something that's simple, then people will remember it better.
Speaker 2That's the point.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2That's the point. Think about great country flags. If I say, I don't even have to show you because this is a voice, Canada, Japan, those designs come to mind for you. I don't have to tell you, oh, it's a maple leaf in red on white between two red bars, or it's a big red disc on a white background. You remember those and you associate them with Canada and Japan. That's a good point. People have learned that the maple leaf represents Canada. The symbol of a red circle on white, Japan, the land of the rising sun. Those are ways to remember what the symbolize, uh, the symbolism represents.
Speaker 1Washington State flag, simple enough?
Speaker 2Uh Washington State flag is interesting. Um I'll go on a bit of a tangent here. We describe state flags and other flags that put a seal on a solid background as an SOB flag. Okay. That's a seal on a bed sheet. And uh most U.S. state flags, about half U.S. state flags, have that design, and there are historical reasons for it, but it's a very unsuccessful design because most of those are a seal on a blue background, and they're indistinguishable from each other at a distance. Sort of contrary to the basic purpose of a flag, which is to mark who it represents, if you can't tell it apart from 25 other states, that's kind of a failure. Washington's flag is an SOB flag, but it has one significant difference, and that is the background's green and not blue. It's the only state flag with that green background. So even if you can't make out anything on the flag, and that's pretty much true of the flag because it's got the seal on it and you can't see the detail at a distance, that green flag, you know that's Washington. Okay. You know, ironically, Vermont has a greater claim on the color green because Vermont Green Mountain in French. Okay. Vermont could have a green flag, but Washington got it, and that's the distinctive nature of the Washington flag. There have been people who have said recently, we ought to redesign the Washington state flag. And when they ask me, I say, you know, it's actually an okay flag to have Washington, the person for whom the state is named, on the flag. But you don't need all that detail of the seal. You don't need all the words, the great seal of the state of Washington around it. You can't see that at a distance. And there's another argument against the seal, and that is it represents the government of the state, not the entire people of the state. So I would simply simplify that central emblem and have a stylized image of Washington in a circle on a green flag, and I think that'd be a very, very effective upgrade of the Washington state flag.
Speaker 1Okay. Well, I was just kind of curious on that one. So back to our the the new city flag. What role do you think uh flags play in shaping a city identity or sense of pride?
Speaker 2There are two arguments for a city flag. Why bother with a city flag? People often say, why aren't you fixing the potholes, or why are you wasting your time on this? What good is a city flag? And there's an element of truth to that. National flags go to war, they compete in the Olympics. There's a big deal of meaning and importance to a national flag, lesser so for states, even lesser so for cities. People's identities are less involved with their city than with their state or their nation or their tribe or their military association or their sporting affiliation or their schools. We belong to many tribes. One of them is the city, but it's not that big a deal. So the question is, well, why should we bother? I think there are two arguments there. One is looking outward, and that is how do we represent ourselves to the rest of the world? How do people know they've driven into Vancouver? You know, there's a I I come uh come off the exit on I-5, and there's this uh display of the U.S., Washington, and Vancouver flag, and you can't make out the Vancouver flag because it's a pretty crummy design. Um if it were a bolder design, yeah, it'd be more representing Vancouver when you got here. Uh it I can't imagine the current flag hanging from light standards, uh uh street lights in the uh on your main streets here. I could imagine a great city flag there, sort of saying, hey, you've gotten to Vancouver. This is this is us. The second benefit of a flag, the second purpose, is inward focus. It's showing the people of Vancouver what city they're in, creating civic pride for Vancouver. And there's an argument, um, I've I've seen it, that a great city flag helps people feel even more proud of being part of their city. Uh we like to observe that the ultimate test of whether a flag is truly embraced by the people of the city it represents is when it starts showing up as a tattoo. That came up in our last episode. Indeed. And there are definitely cities whose flags are frequently used as tattoos. Washington, D.C., Chicago, other cities with great flags. And that's not just because it's a great flag. Yeah. It's this nexus of feeling good about the city and feeling good about the flag and connecting the two.
Speaker 1Well, it'll be a real true uh test to see if the new city flag does uh get some some more civic pride.
Speaker 2Yeah, see if the mayor gets one. Yeah.
Speaker 1Well, uh do tattoo. Yeah. We'll see. Uh I wouldn't hold to that. We'll see. Um have you seen examples where a redesigned flag helped uh unify or energize the community? That's tough because how do how do you actually measure that?
Speaker 2But one of the proxies for that is flag flying. Do you do you see the new flag flying more than the old flag?
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Now, um, talking about a flag, not a new flag, in Chicago, world-class city flag, that flag flies everywhere. I I you can't go a block in Chicago without seeing the Chicago City flag. Now that flag dates from more than a hundred years ago, and it's had a lot of time to be embraced by its citizenry. But there are also cities that have new flags, uh, even flags that haven't been formally adopted. Milwaukee, Wisconsin has a new flag that's been proposed, and it's widely flown. But I would point to Tulsa, Oklahoma, that in the last five years adopted a new flag, world-class design. We did a survey in our organization, the North American Vexillological Association, that's Nava, Nav A.org. Our survey looked at 300 plus new American city flags in the past few years, and Tulsa's rated number one. Really? Um the website, check that out. It's a it's a very good design, and it's flown widely in Tulsa. And Tulsa, Tulsa has challenging history. Uh we think of the the race riots of a hundred years ago. Um, you know, there's there's other issues in Tulsa's history that it wants to show its current civic pride, and that flag is fulfilling that purpose for Tulsa.
Speaker 1That's pretty cool. Well, I'm looking forward to see uh what becomes the new uh City Vancouver flag uh when they finally narrow it.
Speaker 2I have a lot of hope for the new Vancouver City flag. Now I'm from Portland across the river, and we have a pretty effective flag. It's not flown as much as I'd like, and if I were working on it, I might tweak the design as well. But it's been in place for many years, and we see it all over the city. And a key point that I was making about the Washington flag, but I'll make it about city flags too. When you have a flag that's been designed by the city government that's been put uh into place by uh people who are inside working for the city, they lose track of the difference between the city and the city government. And they'll put a city government symbol on the flag. Okay. Um and that's that's why seals end up on flags so much. But you don't want a flag that represents the government of the city. Why would someone want to put the city government flag on their house? Sure. You want a flag that represents the entire city, all the people, the history, the culture, the built environment, everything in the city should be represented by the city flag. And Vancouver has that opportunity. Portland's flag, you see it quite often at Timbers games, but you see it on every fire station, so that's a government use, but you see it on hotels and businesses and people's people's homes, and you see the design elements of the Portland City flag being reused and remixed all over the place. Okay. I see that opportunity for Vancouver as well. Wouldn't that be great to see that happen?
Speaker 1That's a good test of a of a good design. Excellent. Well, um, Ted, this is about all the time we have for today's episode. Um, I want to thank you for joining me today. For those of you interested in more information about uh the new city flag, you can check out the website at cityofvancouver.us /flag. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend, uh, leave a review, or fly your civic pride a little higher today. Until next time.
