Hartwell

This week is Hartwell, a neighborhood I admittedly don’t know a lot about.  Hartwell was annexed in 1912, thus (according to their community council website) making them the last and 52nd neighborhood to be added to the city.    In case you don’t know where it is, see the map below.

 I have driven through a couple of times and noticed that they have a symbol or logo on all their neighborhood signs.  Here it is from the neighborhood council website below.

Here is a picture of an actual neighborhood sign.

I don’t know what that thing is (a stained glass window?) but it is nice because it gives me something to start with.  I also like how the colors of the signs are a unique forest green, greenish yellow, and rose, three simple colors to use as a basis for the flag. 

***POST EDIT***
(In the comments (see below), someone posted their hypothesis about what the logo is.  It seems to look like a street pattern of the neighborhood as in the Google map below.

Thanks to Matt R. for his investigative sleuthing.)

***END OF EDIT***

So taking their symbol and colors I made this simple attempt at a neighborhood flag.

FLAG 1

And then doing a color swap I came up with.

FLAG 2

I think I prefer FLAG 2 even though it changes the color of the Hartwell Logo.  The colors are taken straight from the photo.  I thought I would tidy up the second flag and swap the beige color for white for clearer contrast and got this.

FLAG 3

I think that creates a cleaner look.

Then I noticed that the neighborhood motto is “Northern Gate of Cincinnati” so I tried making a Nordic reference and put the colors on a Nordic Cross a la Sweden/Norway/Finland/Denmark/Iceland. 

FLAG 4

And the colors swapped.

FLAG 5

These are nice and simple, but they lose something unique about the neighborhood, the symbol.  So I combined the two ideas into one flag and darkened the colors a bit and came up with.....

FLAG 6

And the swapped color version.

FLAG 7

Again, I think I prefer FLAG 7 to FLAG 6, even though it switches the color of the neighborhood logo.  The symbolism of the flag is whatever that stained glass logo thing is and the Nordic Cross for being the northernmost Cincinnati neighborhood.  I actually quite like this flag and if I lived in Hartwell and the neighborhood council sold these, I think it would look great flying outside of some of those old fixed up Hartwell homes.   

Please leave comments/suggestions/your own designs below and vote on your favorite. 

Quebec Day!

As all of you know, today is Quebec Day!  So go out there, eat some poutine, say "Sacre bleu!", listen to some Arcade Fire and Celine Dion, and put up your Quebec flag....you know...the Quebec flag you bought....while you were in Montreal......no?

Well I put mine up.

I've only seen one other house ever flying a Quebec flag in Cincinnati.  It was a big beautiful house on Observatory in Hyde Park, near Dana.  And it burnt down.  Hopefully that's not an omen!

The Quebec flag really is a thing of beauty.  Appreciate it below.  This is a design I need to utilize in the future.  Happy Quebec Day!  Maybe you'll get that independence next time!

Over-the-Rhine

When I put the neighborhoods into the randomizer, I was bummed that Over-the-Rhine came up first.  Over-the-Rhine might be the most intimidating neighborhood to design a flag for because it’s so hip and trendy.  I’m sure that there are many graphic designers and artists living there who would have their own ideas about this subject.

*POST EDIT* Some might run the neighborhoods of the West End, Over the Rhine, and Pendleton together.  A map of OTR's boundaries is below.

In fact, when I began to do research on the topic, I found someone who had already created a flag for OTR.  They made a Facebook page called The-Over-Rhine Flag and created a second page about the flag here with downloadable images and descriptions.  A picture of the flag is below.

FLAG 1

Here is the description from the website.

Symbolism

“The colors of Germany and the USA mix in this flag like the Germans' heritage has mixed with Cincinnati's culture. Similar to Cincinnati's flag the waves symbolize the importance of rivers to both the city and the neighborhood, and at the heart is the Ohio State Buckeye. The red river surrounding the center is symbolic of the way the Miami & Erie Canal surrounded the neighborhood, the line that must be crossed to go Over-the-Rhine)”

I love the way it parallels the Cincinnati flag.

This dude (I am assuming it’s a dude) even made an actual flag and flew it from his window

Now, that’s dedication to neighborhood flag making!  This flag gets the “rules” mostly right.

1.  Simple: Less complicated than the Pleasant Ridge garden flag by far.
2. Meaningful symbols: Loaded with them: the red O for Ohio, the Germany flag in the waves, the parallels to the Cincinnati flag.
3.  Colors: Not a ton of colors.  Five is more than the recommended three, but it’s not bad.  My only critique here is that for the flag in the photo, it is hard to distinguish between the blue background and the black wave.  Maybe a lighter blue.  Maybe it's just the light in the photo.
4.  Lettering/Seals:  Fixes the biggest problem with an otherwise great Cincinnati flag of removing the seal from the center.
5.  References: The symbols stated above are all references to the Ohio/Cincinnati/USA/German flags.

I am not going to top this guy but I feel I must try to come up with something of my own.

First, I just wanted to try one tweak of the flag above.  I wanted to know what it would look like if the background was white (to contrast with the waves more and to more closely parallel the Cincinnati flag) and the buckeye leaf from the Cincinnati flag were added in.  And even though this was not intended, it resembles the jerseys of the German World Cup team I was watching yesterday. Just a thought, let me know what you think. 

FLAG 2

Another flag I found for inspiration was from the Fix the Flags page on a new flag for Ohio.  The author also uses the Cincinnati flag for inspiration and came up with this flag.

The description from the website:

“Using this flag (Cincinnati’s) as a template, I've created one that works for the entire state.  Ohio is bordered by two significant bodies of water, the Ohio River on the south and south-east and Lake Erie on the north, and I think I've captured that, along with the "O," without which Ohio's flag just wouldn't be the same:”

I took this idea and just flipped it upside down and added the buckeye leaves from the Cincinnati flag.  Now instead of the thin lower wave representing the Ohio River and the thick upper wave representing Lake Erie, the thick lower wave represents the Ohio River, and the thin upper wave represents the Miami and Erie Canal, the border of Over the Rhine.  Of course now the O stand for OTR, not Ohio. 

FLAG 3

I still need to come up with something more of my own since I have basically ripped off these other two designers (but the O and waves are now stuck in my head).

Upon research if found this symbol.  This is the coat of arms for the Rhineland area back in Germany.

The wave stands for the Rhine River.  So I tried incorporating the green color and the white waves into the above designs and got this

FLAG 4

Then I tried going back to three waves to parallel the Cincy flag

FLAG 5

I also found that there was a short-lived (1806-1813) union of west German states called the Confederation of the Rhine.  The flag is below.

So using these colors I came up with.

FLAG 6

Finally, trying to make a more overt German reference, I switched the colors to the national German flag....but it looks a bit like a 90s t shirt.

FLAG 7

There is a lot to choose from here and feel free to submit your own. Please vote on your favorite (and feel free to vote for FLAG 1 although it's not mine) and leave any suggestions in the comments below.  To the creators of the FLAGs 1 and 3, I hope the use of your flags here is not a problem.  If so, I will take them down.

Happy Flag Day!

I would be remiss if I didn't wish you a happy Flag Day on a flag blog.

I know you all put out your American flags, here is mine above (which is, by the way, the very first flag I purchased twelve years ago).

There is a story on the Enquirer about a flag making company down in the West End that began in 1869.

Also, I ran across this article where a designer made app icon styled flags for all 50 states.

Pleasant Ridge

I have lived in Pleasant Ridge for a little over a year and a half.  If you don’t know where it is, see the map below.

Pleasant Ridge might be the only neighborhood in the city that actually has a neighborhood flag that I’ve seen hanging in front of multiple houses.  I just purchased one myself, see the picture of it proudly hanging below.

Now, while I like this flag and think it shows neighborhood pride when many of us put this outside our homes it is not really what I am going for here.  This is what I would call a garden flag or banner, done more for decoration and not a national/state/civic/neighborhood symbol.  For a civic flag it’s got way too much going on and violates all of the rules of good flag design. 

1.  It is not simple.  It has tons of swirling vines with little silhouettes of families doing all sorts of wholesome activities.  A good flag should be simple enough a child can draw it from memory.
2. No meaningful symbols.  The silhouettes are generic to any neighborhood.
3.  Too many colors. Black, orange, white, at least three shades of blue, three shades of yellow, and three shades of green for a whopping 12 colors on this flag.
4. Flags should have no lettering or seals.  It says the name of the neighborhood right there.  Imagine if Old Glory said United States of America on it, in case you got confused as to which nation it belonged to.
5.  I can’t say it’s not distinctive because it is the only neighborhood flag I see hanging out there.  It has no relations to other flags.  For example, it could have had something that tied us to the city of Cincinnati on it.

I want to be clear that I think it is a good design for a garden banner and I could do no better.  And it is certainly better than this old Pleasant Ridge neighborhood flag that can be seen hanging in the Gaslight Café.  (By the way, as unsightly as I think this is, if anyone out there has a flag like this sitting around, I would be interested in purchasing it from you to add to my collection)

I love my neighborhood, but designing a flag for it is incredibly tough.  We have no identifying structure that we associate our neighborhood with such as: 1) the Mt. Washington water tower 2) The Observatory in Mt. Lookout 3) The Mt. Airy water tower 4) The Kilgour Fountain in Hyde Park etc. 

We don’t have a lot of history either.  Even the name is kind of generic and tough to create a flag based on it.  Sometimes the “welcome to … neighborhood” signs can give some inspiration.  Here’s ours below

Boring and hard to spot, so no luck there.

I looked into our history and saw that the original name of the town that became our neighborhood was Crossroads because it was a way stop at the intersection of what is now Ridge and Montgomery.  So I tried to develop a theme around crossroads.  My first attempt is below.

FLAG 1.

The white lines symbolize the “crossroads” coming together to form our neighborhood.  I actually took this from Indianapolis’ flag which is the capital of the state whose motto is “Crossroads of America”.  I broke the rule of lettering on here, I know but I wanted to put something on there that identified the neighborhood.

Next, I tried a slightly different approach to the same idea.

FLAG 2

Just used a saltire (diagonal cross) instead.  An unintended effect is that the green triangles look like the green triangle flags used by Pleasant Ridge businesses. 

Then, I decided to remove the lettering and go with a more literal “crossroads.”

FLAG 3

A white background with a grey cross of St. George with a smaller yellow cross inside.  I realize the cross is a little crooked, just didn't have the patience to fix it.

But this was a bit too literal with the colors, so to be relational to the city of Cincinnati, I used the city’s flag’s colors. Here is a picture of the Cincinnati flag in case you don’t know what it looks like.

And here is

FLAG 4

Of course, you could try several different versions with the colors swapped (6 possibilities) like this

FLAG 5

But red white and blue are very common colors to flags, so I went back to the neighborhood garden banner and took the three colors I thought were most pleasing (the darker yellows, greens, and blues) and created

FLAG 6

Again, the colors could easily be swapped to create other versions like

FLAG 7

Or

FLAG 8

 I like the simple look of the final 3 flags (simple, 3 colors, no lettering) but the symbolism is weak. 

“Hey, what’s the meaning behind your flag?”

“Oh that, it’s the “crossroads” of Montgomery and Ridge.  The defining characteristic of our neighborhood.” 

“Your neighborhood is defined by an intersection?!”

I will put a voting tool below for people to choose their favorite.  Please feel free to give constructive criticism, but be kind on my first attempt on difficult neighborhood. 

52 Flags for 52 Neighborhoods

I have two loves that are very nerdy.  One is my love of Cincinnati and knowing everything I can about its 52 neighborhoods and their history.  The other is a love of all things pertaining to flags.  I love hanging them outside my house, knowing the design elements, and historical evolution of national, state, and civic flags.    

So I decided to combine these two nerdy loves into my first ever blog and what might quite possibly be the greatest blog ever made.  The goal of this blog is to create a civic flag for each of Cincinnati’s 52 neighborhoods, doing one a week, so that within a year I will have designed them all.  A map of the neighborhoods is below

This blog was inspired by two other groups of blogs.

One group is blogs themed on Cincinnati where the blogger does some activity once a week in the 52 neighborhoods for a year.  The first such blog I saw was 52 Breakfasts which was a great idea done back in 2010 through 2011, although breakfast is limiting in terms of options and the timing of the meal.  The other blog was Run 52 (done just this past year) where the bloggers jogged through each of the neighborhoods, which is even more of a commitment given the weather and time it takes.

The other group of blogs that inspired this one were blogs where the author created their own flag designs. One is Fix the Flags which the goal is to create new flags for each U.S. state, particularly because nearly half of them are simply blue with the state seal on them.  That blog was itself inspired by Your State Flag Stinks, which has the same goal of flag redesign.

With rare exception, the Cincinnati neighborhoods have no flags. So this will not be a redesign but simply the first design.  However, there are many common flag templates and some great flags out there to use as a model.  I would greatly welcome anyone out there who had input or ideas to submit their own ideas and I would put up some of the submissions on the blog. 

The North American Vexillogical Association list 5 rules for a good flag that I completely agree with and will attempt to follow throughout this blog.  Many countries get these right.  Most states and cities, however, are often in violation of these rules and the result is complicated cluttered flags.  Here are the rules

·         The 5 Basic Principles of Flag Design

1.       Keep It Simple

2.      Use Meaningful Symbolism

3.      Use 2-3 Basic Colors

4.      No Lettering or Seals

5.      Be Distinctive or Be Related

I will start with my own neighborhood of Pleasant Ridge as the first post.  I put the remaining neighborhoods into a list randomizer and so each week a random neighborhood will be chosen for the next post. 

Just a note: I am not a graphic designer.  My computer design skills extend to Microsoft paint,  so I will often be stealing liberally.  If I think a flag calls for a bird, I’m going to go out and find a bird on the internet and take it because otherwise it would look like a 5 year old drew it. 

Later tonight, I will put up the Pleasant Ridge flag blog.  Hope you enjoy.