Oakley

For the first time, I did not get a flag blog post out on Sunday!  I've only had a little distraction, the birth of our first child!  My daughter was born 5 weeks ago.  I've actually had all the flag blogs up to this point done in the summer and set them to update automatically.  This one was mostly done, I just had to upload the flags to the post.  Needless to say, I have a little less free time to devote to other tasks even if they are as incredibly important as flag blogs.  So my "work" may suffer a little for future posts (although some of those are already written too) mainly, you may see a little less flag options after this one.  That being said, here is the original post written months ago for our next neighborhood: Oakley

Oakley...."Oakley is the new Hyde Park" we used to say when I first lived in Pleasant Ridge 10 years ago, meaning the housing prices had risen out of the working man's reach for the most part.  Then we used to say with questionable optimism "Pleasant Ridge is the new Oakley?"  Doesn't seem like that has happened quite yet.  Oakley may be the most intimidating neighborhood to design a flag for since I did Over the Rhine.  What I mean by this is that I imagine a lot of graphic designer types and professionals that would be really critical (because they want the best) living in the neighborhood.  So I am going to do my best for ya.  A map of the neighborhood colored in green is below.


Despite what I just said about them wanting the best, their neigborhood signs are quite boring.  I would say sub-par, but so many neighborhoods just put a bunch of houses with at least one church on their "welcome to..." signs.  Here is their neighborhood sign below.



Come on Oakley, you can do better than that.  I mean at least make the outlines recognizable Oakley buildings.

There is a better "welcome to.." sign on the somewhat recently redeveloped Oakley Square.  See it below.



That's not a bad sign, and it has unique colors which may come in handy.  There is a small logo on the sign.  Here is a up close picture of it.

I guess that is a flower or a group of leaves?  Its a good logo, nice simple design, but I wonder why they didn't go with an Oak leaf design since it is OAKley.  Oakley did get its name, by the way, from its oak lined streets.  

An idea I had for Oakley, long before I actually put anything down on paper was a flag similar to the Canadian flag with its maple leaf, but replace it with an oak leaf.

Over spring break I went to the spring break mecca of Pittsburgh.  While there, we went to the neighborhood of Oakland.  Pitt and Carnegie Melon are in this neighborhood so it is a lot like Clifton Heights, but a lot nicer.  I noticed their neighborhood signs while I was there and thought they did a nice job branding the neighborhood.  I took this logo and slapped it on a Canadian flag and got.

FLAG 1

I made it green because that was the color of the original logo and it wasn't easy to change it and it looks nice anyway.  The O at the bottom stood for Oakland, but now it can stand for Oakley.  I am guessing the leaf above it also making an exclamation point, as in OAKLAND!

Then I tried taking out the O and have just the leaf.

FLAG 2

Then I went for bringing the O back, but putting the leaf inside it.

FLAG 3

I began to look for flags that already had oak leaves on them.  There a lot actually, the oak is a popular tree to use as symbol.  In fact, I have already used the oak tree off of the flag of Oakland, California as the symbol for Westwood.  So I wanted to quickly try putting that on the Canadian flag template.  I also made the green a little darker, now that I wasn't restricted by the color of the Oakland Pittsburgh logo.

FLAG 4

I really like that flag, actually.  The only thing that makes me hesitant is that I have already made it the symbol of Westwood and East Westwood.  So let me go steal a different oak tree off of a different flag.

This is the flag of Red Oak, Iowa.

So stealing that gives us

FLAG 5

Not bad, but I like the Oakland tree better, it is more symmetrical.

Next I tried to revisit an old idea but change it around a bit.  I took the Cincinnati flag turned into an O for OTR and Obryonville but took out the single waves and merged them into a single wavey shaped type thingy.  The O is for Oakley.  The flag needed to be cleaned up a bit, but a just didn't have the time.  The flag has parallels to the Cincinnati flag without being too overt.  

FLAG 6

I took the same idea and tried to make a more obvioius Oakley reference by putting an oak leaf in the center of the O

FLAG 7

I tried, then, swapping out the oak leaf for an acorn, which is an ancient symbol for an oak tree, which is itself an ancient symbol for strength.

FLAG 8

I got that acorn from the Middleton (as in Kate Middleton) coat of arms.  Then I realized that the acorn with the leaf is a pretty cool symbol, so I created these next batch of flags.

FLAG 9

The above flag is a Canadian flag with the Middleton Acorn flipped and placed in the center.  I tried coloring in the Acorn red like the maple leaf on the Canadian flag, but it didn't quite work, so I made a blue block around it instead to give it more contrast.  

For the next flag I took the same key Middleton Acorn and added it to a horizontally reversed Trinidad and Tobago flag.  No real reason for the colors, other than they seemed to work well.

FLAG 10

Finally, I went back to the newer Oakley neighborhood sign with the four leaffy looking logo thingy and took that symbol and the colors from the sign and put it on a flag.  It needs to be cleaned up a bit, but you get the idea.

FLAG 11

I'm looking for Oakley big wig to put me to shame with an awesome flag design of his/her own!  Please vote below.