Carthage

Carthage is one of those neighborhoods I haven't spent a lot of time in.  When I think of Carthage I think of the Hamilton County Fairgrounds, the taqueria I used to eat at when I lived in Clifton (El Valle Verde), and that controversial "Big Indian" sign at a car dealership (which the Enquirer recently did a story on).  I've always grouped Carthage and Hartwell together as the Northern Vine Street neighborhoods, but maybe Carthaginians and Hartwellians would find that offensive.


One thing I noticed in my drive throughs is that Carthage is home to a burgeoning Hispanic community.  In fact, as you can see from the sign below, it is the only neighborhood I can think of that has official signs in both English and Spanish.


That sign us gives Carthage a unique (albeit ugly) color combo of red and purple.  You can see it repeated in slightly different shades in this logo taken from the community council webpage.

I don't think that logo will work on a flag.  It looks like it is for children's vitamins or something.  "Championvits: The vitamin that helps kids grow strong, like a champion!"

So even though the Hispanic cultural aspect of the neighborhood is relatively recent, I thought I would work off this because it would be unique for the neighborhood.  So I needed symbolism that could work for many different nationalities since it is not just a single nation that people are immigrating to Carthage from.   The Spanish language is the obvious commonality so I looked for an old symbol for Spain since there won't be a symbol for a language.

So I came up with this.  This is the Cross of Burgundy.  It was used as a Spanish naval ensign and land battle flag starting in the 16th century.  This version (and the alternate white and red version below) surely flew over North American territories of Spain before the various areas found independence.

Yellow and Red Cross of Burgundy.  

White and Red Cross of Burgundy.

Here is a picture from Castillo San Felipe del Morro in Puerto Rico where you see a Cross of Burgundy, the Puerto Rican flag, and the US flag flying together.

Other US flags have referenced this flag, so it isn't a stretch.

The flag of Florida ( a state with a long Spanish history) refernces the C.O.B in their state flag.

And Arizona takes the colors from the yellow and red version to reference their Spanish history.

So my first attempt was to take the C.O.B. and Cincyfy it by changing the color of the cross a bit to Cincinnati Red and adding in some Cincinnati Blue.

FLAG 1

And then making the entire field Cincy Blue

FLAG 2

And then swapping the colors of FLAG 1 to try another style would give.

FLAG 3

Then I tried splitting the cross into red and blue sections to keep the entire field white and got.

FLAG 4

Next I wanted to try to incorporate the red and purple colors of Carthage signs and websites.  So using purple for the field and red for the cross because it create an even more solid C.O.B. refernce gives.

FLAG 5

Then I tried a color swap and got...

FLAG 6

I think I prefer the look of this one to FLAG 5 but it's starting to look a bit too much like the Confederate Battle Flag for me.

Next I tried making the flag with a gyronny saltire.  That means the colors in the cross rotate.  First I did it with Cincy colors.

FLAG 7

And then with Carthage purple and red in the cross with a white field

FLAG 8

And then going back to using purple for the field but using a gyronny saltire

FLAG 9

Well, it's almost just one flag colored many different ways, but I do think some of these would make a nice flag.  Votes and comments below.

Bond Hill

Bond Hill is this week's neighborhood.  It's coming a little late I know.  A map of Bond Hill is below, and it has a small border with my Pleasant Ridge neighborhood.  When I was researching the history of Bond Hill, I couldn't find much.  Not even entirely sure of the origin of the name of the neighborhood, but the leading candidate is that it was named after somebody named Bond who lived in the area.


Neighborhood signs are a good place to start if you don't have many ideas.  Unfortunately when I tried to find Bond Hill signs on the internet, this is all I could find.


Not much inspiration there.

One thing that always comes to my mind when I think of Bond Hill is often a Metro bus will say Bond Hill Garage if it is out of service and heading "home."  Metro is important to keep the city working and since the Metro buses are stored in Bond Hill, maybe that can be their "thing".

I then thought about the poles that are painted to indicate a Metro stop.  They are orange with a blue stripe, although often they are just orange.  Here is a picture of a stop sign near my house painted to indicate a Metro stop.

So I decided to create a flag inspired by a Metro pole.  Here is my first attempt.

FLAG 1

That's a pretty solid flag if you ask me from a mere aesthetic point of view, although its meaningful connection to the neighborhood is weak.

I tried another version of the same basic idea.  This time I simply took the flag of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and recolored it to match the simpler flag above.  

First the DRC flag.

And the Bond Hillerized version in which I added a white fibrimation (border) to the the star.

FLAG 2

I swapped the colors next.  It loses the Metro pole refernce, but it's a nice looking flag.

FLAG 3

I designed these flags in the summer.  Since then new Bond Hill neighborhood signs have gone up.  Here is a picture of one below.

A big improvement on the one pictured above, although it is small.  The logo isn't great, but it's something to work off of at least.  The color scheme of blue, silver, and lime green is kind of nice, reminds me of the Seattle Seahawks.  It would be a uniqe combo but I've already used the Seattle Sounders colors for Linwood, and they are similar.  But I think I will try a second round of flags with Seattle Seahawks colors and trying to recreate to bh logo.    

First I wanted to show some color comparison between colors. 

Seattle Sounders colors.

Current Seattle Seahawks colors (since 2012)

So first I just tried FLAGS 1 and 2 recolored with the new colors and adding a mark inspired by the bh logo because I had trouble recreating exactly and I wanted it to be just a tad more abstract.

FLAG 4

And 

FLAG 5

Finally, I thought of how my first association with anybody named Bond is James Bond.  So I decided to make a James Bond themed flag.

Here is the James Bond logo.

And my James Bond inspired Bond Hill flag.

FLAG 6

As always, votes and comments appreciated.

Civic Flag Design Special Bonus Blog Post.

There is a great podcast out there about design called 99% Invisible. If you like Radiolab or Freakanomics, give this one a try. Just recently they did a quick story on flag design. In it they talk about how bad most city flags are because they break the rules for good flag design:

· 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





They big one cities break is rule number 4. Cities love putting seals on flags. Just look at the Cincinnati flag.




It's a pretty good flag overall, ranked 22 out of 150. But, there is that seal making things all complicated. Let's look at it with the seal removed.



Big improvement in my opinion.

Here are some examples of even worse city flags with lettering and seals.



MILWAUKEE #147 out of 150










PROVO #143 out of 150






AKRON #126 out of 150






Here are some good city flags.




WASHINGTON DC #1



CHICAGO #2



ST. LOUIS #5






Louisville had a great flag





But very recently (2003) they had a classic example of how a city government (who should not be in the flag designing business) really screwed things up. Louisville merged with most (or all, I don't really know for sure) of Jefferson County. This "new" city felt it needed a new flag, distinctive from the old because it's not the Louisville swallowed up the rest of the county, it merged to become Louisville Metro. Here is the new flag for the region.



From great to terrible. They added a seal, with lettering. It's hard to see, but the gold is not even one shade of gold, it is a gradient. Terrible for a flag.



Anyway the podcast from November 11th centers on the flag of Portland. To sum up, Portland didn't have a flag in 1969, when the put together an arts commission to design one. The arts commission, following the rules for good flags, came up with this. It represents the confluence of the Columbia and Willamette Rivers.










The city council took it and said, "That's good, but you know what it needs? A seal? They made this the official city flag




Luckily, in the 21st century they decided to fix past mistakes. This is the current Portland flag ranked #7 out of 150 city flags






One great suggestion the had in the podcast for flag design was draw it on a napkin of 1 in by 1.5 in. If you can't fit your design in there, it's too busy.






Anyway, it's a great podcast from a great show, check it out.





Finally, I am not a Big Bang Theory fan, but I may have to watch this week's episode because it keeps showing Sheldon playing a game called Fun with Flags!

Spring Grove Village (aka Winton Place)

What's in a name?  Would the neighborhood Spring Grove Village called by any other name smell as sweet?  According to a majority of residents of SGV, the answer is yes.  Until recently Spring Grove Village was known as Winton Place.  The problem arose with the association most people have with the word Winton.  Winton, in many people's minds means Winton Terrace, a housing project in neighboring Winton Hills neighborhood.  The people of Winton Place often found themselves saying, no it's Winton PLACE, not Winton TERRACE!  So the neighborhood voted to change the name to associate themselves with the most famous and beautiful institution in their neighborhood, Spring Grove Cemetery.  You can see in the map below that this is from when it was still called Winton Place.


Spring Grove Village came up with a little logo for their signs when the underwent the name change.

I have also seen this tulip looking logo on a car decal.  A tulip design is the place to start then, I think.  I tried to recreate the flower in the actual logo, but couldn't quite pull it off.  But, I think you can get the idea from the flags I created below with a different tulipy type image.  I didn't have a lot of time this week so I mainly used some basic flag template based off of some common but good flag designs.

First a symbol Quebec style flag with the Spring Grove Tulip in the four corners of a cross flag.  I wanted earthy colors, similar to the earthy ones on the sign above.


FLAG 1

Next I tried a Canadian style flag

FLAG 2

Next I went for for a Norwegian style flag.  With the Tulip placed in the upper hoist canton.

FLAG 3

Next I tried a very similar design, but off of the Finland flag which has a thicker and monotone cross.

FLAG 4

Finally, a flag based off of the flag of Amsterdam (seen below)

FLAG 5

Aesthetically I think I like Flag 1 the best, but I have used that before.  Flag 3 looks nice, but again I used the Norway flag as the template for Hartwell.  I don't think I've used the Flag 5 style before so that might give it a boost.  Let me know what you think.  

Votes and comments below.