In their regularly scheduled meeting, the redesign commission announced it received more than 2,600 entries during the one month.
“I think we’re all excited to look at the submissions, I’m sure,” Luis Fitch said.
“There’s going to be many of them, so we’ll have to be patient.” Fitch is a voting member of the commission as well as a representative of the Council on Latino Affairs and Chair of the commission.
For Fitch and the 12 other voting members of the commission, patience will indeed be a virtue as they parse through a design that could replace the current one, which is pretty standard. “The flag fails in its fundamental purpose,” Ted Kaye of the North American Vexillological Association said.
“It’s indistinguishable from half of the other U.S. state flags.” Kaye, who spoke in the meeting as an expert source, said Minnesota’s standard seal-on-blue-background flag is highly similar to more than 20 other flags in the state.
With simplicity in mind, some of the submissions already on display on newMNflag.org fit the bill. Kaye, who has guided Utah recently through its flag redesign process and has served as a consultant on dozens of redesign efforts for cities and even countries, summarized by saying the design part is only really a sliver of the pie.
“It’s 10 percent design and 90 percent politics and public relations,” Kaye explained. “You’re playing a vital role in the design process. The overall process is a PR and political process.”
To avoid politics, Anita Gaul, a voting commission member, asked if purple would be the wrong color to use on a flag. She said she would certainly expect to see a lot of submissions using purple, given that Minnesota is home to the Vikings and Prince. “I’ve also heard that purple is not a good color for a flag. is that true or not?” Gaul asked Kaye. Kaye explained that while purple is an unusual color for a flag, it is more commonly used than in the past, as producing purple flags now does not come with a higher price tag.
He also explained that purple is darker and tends to fade quickly. However, he cautioned against drawing upon the Vikings for flag inspiration.
“When a city or state has poor civic or state symbolism, that void is filled by sports teams,” Kaye said. “But sports teams, they can move — they can break your heart. I don’t think the Vikings are ever moving out of Minnesota, but I would hesitate to tie your state’s symbolism to a for-profit sports franchise.
” The commission’s next step is whitening the 2,600+ submissions to five finalists. The final deadline is January 1st, before the legislature votes on the design.