NewsroomPlus.com
Contributed by Stephen Olsen – see also LinkedIn Pulse
Five years ago, in 2010, I wrote a short article for a now defunct magazine called ProDesign. The topic was the design of the New Zealand flag, and the title of the published article was ‘First Drafts’.
With the moves to institute a flag change currently being run as a glossy “engaging with government” exercise, it seemed time to dust that article off and give it a simple cut & paste reprint, below, at the end of my first proper post on LinkedIn.
The impetus for ‘First Drafts’ was reading a piece in the Sunday Star-Times in which Sean McGarry, the then president of DINZ (the Designers Institute of New Zealand), was featured injecting a very abstract design as part of the languishing ‘flag debate’.
Before I renew contact with Sean to see if he still has a copy of his draft design, I do recall something that was visually reminiscent of a Split Enz album cover!
Prodesign editor Michael Barrett responded well to the idea of an article back in 2010, and under Sean’s leadership of DINZ it dovetailed neatly with an additional call to members of DINZ to engage on the challenge of flag design generally.
The next stop in my research was a straight line to flag advocate extraordinaire Lloyd Morrison – a name that would, you’d think, have been mentioned frequently as a touchstone for the potential flag-changing path that the country is now on.
Lloyd – who sadly passed away in 2012 at just 54 years old – had amassed a string of remarkable business achievements in his life, and supported many initiatives – as noted in a tribute from NZEdge.com producer Brian Sweeney.
Yet one of the most elusive campaigns Morrison devoted his relentless energies to was not about building a business, it was about changing the flag.
In 2010 his battle with cancer was taking a toll, and yet I’ll always remember he still made time for an interview for ProDesign, and furthermore for a ragtag meeting with McGarry, myself, Scoop’s Alastair Thompson and PR man Gerry Morris to entertain ideas for re-igniting that elusive campaign.
Fast forwarding to 2015
It’s interesting now to see Gareth Morgan, and the Morgan Foundation, enter the fray. And interesting to contrast Morgan’s Six Dumbest Objections to Changing Our Flag with Morrison’s Eight Reasons For A New New Zealand Flag Morrison – reasons to change:- A flag is meant to be flown
- A flag needs to be instantly recognisable
- A flag is a brand
- A flag needs to connect emotionally
- A flag should represent great design
- A new flag can honour our past
- A new flag should say one thing
- The times they are a changin’
- You should never change your flag
- Our soldiers died for the flag
- We are all from Britain
- I like it
- Waste of money
- Flags don’t matter, do something important
- ahem, share what you ‘stand for’ (quick it entitles to you have your name included on a national flagpole!)
- hold or be part of a discussion in your community (there is a kit)
- get your school involved (there is a kit for that too)
- or meet the officially selected panel on their national road show, with just six stops left before it finishes up at Te Tii Waitangi Marae on Sunday 5 July.
Not feeling inspired?
Michael Smythe at Design Assembly has written a nifty overview of what’s likely to unfold, using that well-worn wedding saying as the parameters for what we should expect to see emerge, namely: Something old; Something blue; Something borrowed; Something new. Arch-comparator Australia may not yet be biting this bullet, but it’s bound to happen there too and ideas have certainly been kicked around for years, like this example included in a very good overview of Australian graphic design by Canadian Robert L. Peters in 2007.
Coincidentally with New Zealand, Fiji has been on the move to a new flag this year as reported by Fijian journalist Richard F. Naidu for NewsRoom_Plus, and will definitely be first past the post by a long margin.
In Fiji feedback is due to end this Wednesday, July the 1st, when designs will be submitted to Cabinet for consideration and a vote in the Fijian Parliament will decide the new Fijian flag in time for the 45th celebration of independence on October the 10th.
Reports out of the newly democratised nation relayed by Radio New Zealand have been that the Fijian public have been alienated by the process. Of the 23 final entries, nine feature a triangle emerging horizontally from the left, while five feature an identical wave and sail design, four have an identical boat on a straight line, and four others feature yellow stars or a sun. But after 1000-plus entries that went in, it was reported that designs were a matter of ‘design by committee‘.
New Zealand’s own provocative ‘committee of one’, Gareth Morgan, has been seeking to spice up the design process here with a newly announced competition, especially calling on designs that best acknowledge the spirit of the Treaty of Waitangi, saying he’s concerned a lot of entries don’t represent Maori fairly enough.
In good Morgan fashion there’s a prize too of $20,000, and entries close on Monday 13 July – details at designmyflag.nz and it’s well worth checking the latest entries (no jokes there!), which will in fact go before not just Morgan, but designers Mark Pennington (head designer Formway), Catherine Griffiths (designer and typographer) and Desna Whaanga-Schollum (Nga Aho co-chair) to help choose a winner to put into the mix by 16 July.
Off the sidelines for one day
Having revisited all of the above, I have been motivated today to think of what I would possibly submit as a flag design if a flag designer I could be, just for one day. Extra motivation was that during the week I was interviewed by Kristen Paterson, Station Manager at Wellington Access Radio about my views as a ‘working journalist’ on what’s wrong with journalism. Part of my take on that was that it is a temptation or trap as a journalist to be forever an elevated spectator or commentator, and seldom a participant. For today I got a sudden idea for a flag from heading up Wellington’s Kelburn Parade and being captivated by the blue sky – of late, a rare and beautiful climactic spectacle – and the way that two lofty cranes were positioned, thus:
A little bit of photoshopping later and I ended up with this:
Kind of what I had in mind, but what could I add? This?:
Yeah, NAH : )
Then I was reminded of that constant image, of our two main islands of Te Ika a Maui and Te Wai Pounamu; pervasively, potently and ever-presently present. Those two fingers to the world, one called north and one called south – so often left off the edge of the map. Wouldn’t or couldn’t that be a compelling element of ‘our flag’?
Then with recent satellite imagery of our long snow-covered land in mind, and a big nod to a matariki item at the Big Idea, I came up with this second draft effort of a woven motif showing off Aotearoa New Zealand in summer (yet to be submitted!)
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Looking back
PRO/DESIGN MAGAZINE – February/March 2010
