A Visual Designer’s Perspective on Selecting NZ’s Next Flag
New Zealanders, there’s a high possibility that we’ll be selecting a new flag in the not so distant future. So it’s time we had the ‘chat’.
If you were sick, you wouldn’t visit your accountant. Likewise, if your car had broken down, you wouldn’t call the plumber. So maybe you shouldn’t take flag advice from John Key, Beatrice Faumuina, or Gareth Morgan.
How about taking the time to hear from an actual design professional. Someone who is like, a total professional at designing things.
I’ve had well over a decade’s experience in graphic design. My current role is the Digital Design Director at a large Auckland brand and creative studio. My tasks include overseeing web design, app creation, iconography and the occasional photographic escapade. I wouldn’t say that I’m the best at any one task, but the secret to my success has always been being a ‘jack of all trades’.
Bona fides out of the way, my passion is pure design. The fundamentals of colour, shape and space. Flags are a unique window into the honest origins of true design. Their components are bold, simple, and confined by a fixed boundary that demands balance.
The opportunity to change a flag is a rare event. It’s like a design unicorn! And with great unicorns, comes great responsibility. We’ve got the chance to show the world our good stuff. We can create a new rallying point that’s a bastion of fantastic taste and design. It’s a chance to bat above our weight and show the world how much value we see in great design. As a nation, design is how we can still take on the world and win. Someone else can always make a cheaper widget. But you cannot buy great design on a third world production line.
So lets get a few things out of the way first. A flag in use is a tiny scrap of fluttering cloth. We should imagine it from the viewpoint of a hobbit, peering at a flag, up a pole, 50 metres in the distance. This effective viewing distance creates a design canvas that’s roughy 30mm x 20mm. For all practical purposes, it’s a flag for ants! This means it needs to be simple, with strong contrast and basic geometric shapes.
At this point in our conversation, I’d pull out a large pen and cross out all the ferns, korus, and compound shapes. I don’t consider these shapes pure design, and thus they do not qualify. You could point out the logo you designed for the Fernz Retreat looked lovely wafting on a balmy rotorua breeze. But aside from pointing out the obvious, I’d say that you put a logo on a flag. And a flag of course isn’t a logo.
The second issue I’d like to address is the everyman obsession with ‘meaning’. We’re all clever individuals. So we’re past needing to create an object that sums up all New Zealand. There is no value in attempting to create iconography for intangible ideals. Its like trying to divide by zero. Jack from Timaru might like the idea that a swoosh of green represents our clean green image. While a swoosh of blue represents our clean green image, or the highlanders, or whatever! But meaning is relative. As a designer, I’ve always reworked every back story I’ve ever told. It’s the unimaginative that need the reassurance of a literal connection.
A wise man once told me that the story always comes after. We must first create the object, before we can attach the meaning. This is our opportunity to choose a symbol to lead us into the next century. Something free from baggage and history. Something bold, strong and handsome. What it shouldn’t be, is a curly litteral interpretation of our tiny isle in the South Pacific.
