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.