Minnesota’s new state flag should feature an eight-pointed North Star against a dark blue background shaped like the state, with a solid light blue field at the right, a special commission decided Tuesday as it picked a replacement for an older design that many Native Americans considered offensive.
The State Emblems Redesign Commission chose the final version on an 11-1 vote after finalizing a new state seal that depicts a loon, the state bird. Unless the Legislature rejects them, the new flag and seal will automatically become official April 1, 2024, when Minnesota observes Statehood Day.
The star echoes Minnesota’s state motto of “Star of the North.” The commission’s chairman, Luis Fitch, said that to him, the light blue represents the Mississippi River, “the most important river in the United States,” pointing to the North Star. But he acknowledged it could mean other things to other people. Symmetry and simplicity won out over other versions, including ones that included a green stripe for the state’s agricultural heritage.
Too bad they didn’t go with the Polaris Tri-color. I agree with Grey that it was the best of the color variations.
I liked this choice. The tri-color seemed a little busy to me.
I agree. I do like the tri color and would have been happy with it, but there’s a quote from whom I cannot remember that essentially is “flag design is finding the perfect flag and then dialing it down a notch”. And to that end, I think it succeeds wonderfully.
It’s modern but classic. Detailed but not busy. Inclusive but not all-encompassing. It’s pretty amazing.
I am glad they changed the star design; I think the new one is much better.
My only gripe with the alterations of the submitted design is the star shape change.
I loved the big points in the cardinal directions with smaller points in between. I dislike this eight-pointed star.
They were both good, but I think they made the more-refined “high-brow” decision by going with fewer colors.
I’m actually jealous of this flag. Only downside is it’s kind of hard to see against the blue sky, lol.
I think the 2 tones of blue make it look more like a basic corporate design than “high-brow”
Do you like places with stickers everywhere?
Not particularly, but I’m also not bothered by the presence of more than one color.
Tricolor was better. 120%.
I would have sworn my eternal allegiance to the Polaris Tri-Color. This one is nice, especially for a state flag, but not inspiring.
I recently finished watching that video and NGL the tricolor with less toned colors looked pretty beautiful to me.
I like that they went with the simplified “K” shape for Minnesota (the reverse triangle is really clever visually) but I did also like the more colorful version better. Just a little too plain now for me.
It’s worse than the original design with the white/green/blue tri-colour on the right.
But still a big improvement.
Removed by mod
I like how easy on the eyes it is.
It’s actually pleasant to look at while not demanding your attention.
Solid flag.
CPG Grey will be so excited.
We need another “breaking flag news” update asap.
He provided an update, but last time I checked it was behind a members only paywall.
This is the only reason I clicked on this post as I reckonized this flag from his video.
Oh cgp grey’s favorite won
It’s still not the good colors though
I was gonna say I that looks like a flag cgp would love. Glad it’s the one he approved of.
Cool. Now he should bring back HI instead of leaving its Patreon up for three years. I don’t care that it only collected money when episodes released, the optics of it matter.
HI?
Hello Internet
Relevant: CGP Grey Grades State Flags!
He did one about this new flag too! https://youtu.be/lFwwo0W5Ugg
Huggbees also does some flag reviews.
He also just recently published a follow up on this flag specifically.
The new flag is badass!
I just looked it up out of curiosity, and Minnesota’s old flag is boring and generic AF. It was a member of the “state seal on blue” club.
As a general rule you should be able to roughly represent the flag in 10 seconds in MS paint using only the pencil tool. If you can’t, it’s a bad flag.
This flag you can do that the old one with the seal is terrible and you definitely couldn’t because it looks like every other terrible state flag, with a seal.
You over estimate my ms painting abilities. That star would take me ages.
Big day for !vexillology@lemmy.world
We’ll be trying to get our hands on a nice flag with the original design#1953 on it to fly outside our house. This one is fine I guess, but it stings with what could have been.
Cool flag. I like the solid light blue over the stripes that were an option, K.I.S.S…
Feel like with that simplified they could have done something with color a little more interesting than the dark blue to really emphasize the shape of that dark blue region but if you can’t give this a 10/10 your standards are too high.
I liked the tri-color design, but this one is good too, like you said simplicity is best. The dark blue in the K shape is shaped like the state, so the solid color fits.
Anything is better than the seal on a blue sheet
Yeah, flags like those are just generally bad.
What the hell happened to the star‽ They took away its twinkley starriness. Now it just looks like a blurry circle
64 bit ==> 16 bit
That looks really nice.
It looks better when you see it as Godzilla firing his atomic breath.
This is a great choice. That flag is probably now the best one in the Union.
In my opinion Mew Mexico and Arizona are both better. I hope this encourages more states that are just “blue field with state seal” to make better flags. New York really needs help 😅
Colorado has a C on it!
Ohio’s is the only one not shaped like a rectangle, therefore it is the best.
I was just thinking that!
Colorado’s is clearly better. Definitely the most recognizable.
Yep. Here in Oregon everyone just flies the Cascadian flag
Except for the southern part of the state which is all about the State of Jefferson flag
I had not heard of the State of Jefferson before. Wow, just wow. I’m really surprised how old the proposal is.
Our flag should just be the back on both sides.
And it should be a platypus instead of a beaver.
Alaska is pretty good, and it’s designed by a 14 year old.
I like it fine, and I bet you could incorporate those design elements into a lot of cool merch, which is a nice rule-of-thumb for useful flags.