Mount Adams

This week is Mt. Adams, maybe the most picturesque neighborhood in the city, deserving of a picturesque flag.  Mt. Adams is also old with a lot of history.  It was originally called Mt. Ida until 1843 when president John Quincy Adams visited it to dedicate the opening of the Cincinnati Observatory and the hill was renamed after him.  A map of Mt. Adams is below.


One of the first things that comes to mind for many people at the mention of Mt. Adams is the steep steps that cover the neighborhood and for the famous Good Friday step pilgrimage.  So I first tried some type of design to evoke steps.  I didn't know what colors to use so I just used the colors off of the Cincinnati flag.  Two attempts are shown below.

FLAG 1

The jaggy Atari graphics looking things are meant to signify steps zig zagging back and forth up the Mt. Adams hillside. The colors are from the Cincinnati flag. I lifted the style of the steps from this flag which is a break away region of Azerbaijan of ethnic Armenians called Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.  Their flag is below.

There is a great page on British flags, by the way, called the UK Flag Registry.  Apparently, there was a push several years ago for counties and cities without official flags to design their own, and there are some really good ones out there.  Anyway, I saw this flag for Staining in Lancashire England  which made me think stairs again.

So I took that basic design and Cincinatified it with the Cincy colors and symbols.

FLAG 2

The axe thingy is a fasces by the way.  It is a Roman symbol of power, often used by governments.  There is a statue of Cincinnatus down at Sawyer Point, holding the fasces.  

I was not very happy with this one, though.  It looks a little cheap (I can't imagine why, I made it in Paint for crying out loud!).  Also, although it has clearly not reached the infamy of the swastika, the fasces was used by facist Italy as their symbol and has fallen out of favor a bit as a governmental symbol. 

Then I tried to do something tied to Adams.  I looked up the Adams family crest, don't know if THE John Quincy Adams family used this crest, but here it is below.

So I took the flag of England and put five yellow stars on it.

FLAG 3

And tried another version with Cincinnati blue substituted for the white background.

FLAG 4

Then I read about how Nicholas Longworth originally used Mt. Adams as a vineyard, so I tried adding a vineyard theme by putting grape bunches into the four corners of the flag, like the Quebec flag.  Since the image I used for the grapes was purple with a green leaf, I also changed the color of the St. George's cross and stars.

FLAG 5

But this seemed like there might be too much going on, so I tried two options. 

First reduce the stars down to just the center one.

FLAG 6

But this removes the Adams reference, so I tried reducing the grape images to just the canton (upper left corner in flag speak) instead.

FLAG 7

I tried the above three designs with a different grape graphic and color scheme.

FLAG 8

FLAG 9

FLAG 10

But then I came across a grape graphic that I really like from 

Here's How All 50 State Flags Would Look As App Icons 

for their Connecticut app icon.  Remember, I am not good at graphic design so I have to steal these images.
By the way here is the Connecticut flag with its grape vines on it.

And here is the website re-visioning of the flag as an app icon.


The translation of the Latin is "He who transplanted, sustains" a slogan that would work for immigrants anywhere, including those who immigrated to Mt. Adams.

So I took one more attempt at the three templates above.

FLAG 11

FLAG 12

And finally

FLAG 13

 A cross with a symbol in the canton is a classic English flag style that sill would have been familiar to many of Mt. Adams first residents.  The grape graphic of the last three is obviously superior (being designed by a graphic designer) and I actually like the maroon and green colors of the last three flags.  So the official symbolism of the flag is the grapes to symbolize the origins of Mt. Adams and the cross and stars as a reference to John Quincy Adams, for which the neighborhood is named.  The stars also work as a reference to the Cincinnati Observatory originally atop the hill.

As always, vote and leave comments below.