A Flag for our Fallen Soldiers
Explore most any city long enough and you will come across a memorial to the members of the community that have died in service of their country. Huddled within city centers or deep within city parks, their existence is very rarely called to attention.
The somber tone of local memorials often lead to them being over looked by passers by and visitors alike. Obviously an American flag flies above these memorials to call attention to them, but then again so does every car lot in the city. What if a flag existed specifically to mark veteran memorials? What if a flag stood in a compliment to the US flag? What would that flag look like? What would be the design palette and logic behind its design.
Finding a Visual Language
America has a rich graphic history that offers almost too many opportunities for inspiration for a new memorial flag. Limiting the frame of reference to the visual language of the armed services still offers a dizzying amount of visual inspiration to choose from. Better yet, let’s look at commonalities between the armed services and the men and women who work in their service.
Specifically, how do the armed services honor their soldiers? Looking across the honors and awards given to those in service it’s clear that stars, Purple Hearts and the Medal of Honor are awards handed out across all branches of the armed services.
Additionally, a shared award across all branches of the military is the award ribbon. Finally, honoring fallen soldiers there is a single honor given to the surviving family of each soldier receiving a military burial, the folded United States of America flag. This folded flag is in fact such a powerful symbol that the Arlington National cemetery has incorporated it into their visual language.
A Flag to Memorialize our Heros
These shared awards and honors could be mixed in a way that feel familiar to our service men and women, yet sit respectfully under the American flag or announce the place of a local war memorial proudly alone.
Taking the folded flag motif as the core of our Veteran's Memorial flag there is already a strong and rich language that will become the cornerstone of the flag. In fact, the folded flag is such a powerful sign of our fallen soldiers that the Arlington National Cemetery has incorporated it into their visual identity.
A strong image indeed. Arlington National Cemetery is the standard bearer of our lost hero’s and our flag should follow suite. However, the folded flag sits on a crest of red, removing the crest we now have a field fit for a flag.
Finally, revisiting the design motif of the Award Ribbon. These ribbons can be affixed to a soldier’s uniform calling out specific highlights in one’s service while not disturbing the power of the military uniform.
By adding a blue stripe to the flag it becomes a lasting award to anyone buried under it.
To complete the design, the reintroduction of the folded flag to the center of the flag. This completes the new memorial flag for our fallen soldiers.
