"Could a kid have designed proposed New Zealand flag?" Topic

I've posted on my 'Dressing The Lines' blog about the latest contender for an alternative to the current New Zealand flag:

link

The posting talks about how you often see a clever idea that is so simple that you think, ‘I could've done that!' Yet, the point is that you didn't do that, and nor did anyone else, until the person who finally came up with the deceptively simple idea. And that's certainly the case with the latest contender to become New Zealand's new national flag.

And here is that deceptively simple flag flying at my place:

Well … Looks ok. Resembles a plain-ish nautical banner or some such thing.

Your house, on the other hand, looks absolutely awesome!!!! And I am envious of your skies too.

Dan

I like the old, errr, current one.

Cacique Caribe: "a plain-ish nautical banner"

… which oddly enough the current NZ ensign actually is! At the end of the nineteenth century it was a flag for maritime purposes only, but was made the legal flag in 1902.

Every time I see that Red peak flag I think of some breakaway region of Slovakia or a flag at the beach saying "swim between these flags". It doesn't say NZ to me, or almost anyone else. 850,000 New Zealanders wanted the classic silver fern on black background as one of the options in the run-off for the alternate. Red Peak came in at 35/40. It is so obvious that if the classic black fern flag was one of the choices it would win hands down – it is already the de facto alternate NZ flag. Whether it would topple the current flag is another story. This is my favourite not included.

I like the Fern Flag.

Shouldn't it be called the New New Zealand Flag?

I was just watching "All Blacks" beating Georgia yesterday at the World Cup and thinking the Fern o their chest is a mighty elegant and gracious image.

'A proposed design for the New Zealand flag has raised concerns because of its purported likeness to the Nazi swastika. MP Denis O'Rourke showed parliament how the design resembles the swastika by placing four of the flags together.'

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Seems to be a bit controversal.

That's utterly moronic "it looks like a Swastika if you take four of them and carefully arrange them to look like a Swastika"….

This is still the best design, IMHO:

'That's utterly moronic '

Oh, I would agree with that.

I agree with you there Jakar – to be honest I think the whole exercise will turn out to be an expensive way of finding that not many people really want to change it, and we'll keep the old flag thanks very much, but of the new ones I definitely think that's the best looking.

Arteis02,

I made the mistake of thinking you were looking for honest opinions.

Anyway, I was referring to the maritime communication/semaphore signal flags of TODAY. Or the kind you see on sheets in a little kid's room.

TMP link

Dan
PS. I'm afraid what young US voters today would select for a national flag if someone made the mistake of giving them an opportunity to change it.

Seems to me a sheep would be a lot more appropriate than a fern, given the number of those being raised there.

IIRC, there are more sheep than humans on the isles.

You could go with a white sheep on a navy blue background, to signify the blue ocean surrounding the islands, or go with a black sheep on a white background, to really make a statement.

Personally I think if we were to change the flag that we should play up to the clean green image we so like to portray. I don't like Red Peak as I felt it looked too Neo Nazi to me even before Denis O'Rourke displayed it in Parliament.

The most noticeable symbol to me when we first emigrated to NZ in 1974 was the Green Plastic Tiki. I should have come up with a design based on that but it looks like we are going to stick with the original design which is fine by me being a Brit.

Even Justin Bieber backs the original design.

link

That might work as an identity flag for people of Maori descent. But what about the whole?

Seems like a lot of mental energy, polling and lobbying effort and money is being spent to undo most signs of traditional identity these days. All around the world an inordinate amount of focus is behind dedicated to accentuating inner differences rather than what most have in common as a nation.

Like a bunch of teenage nouveau voters with Daddy issues.

A good and convenient distraction from finding real solutions to real problems within each nation. Oh, well.

TMP link

Dan

I don't have a dog in this fight, but….
I like the one Jakarta Nilson put up.

I prefer Laser Kiwi to Red Peak. It scored higher than Red Peak in the initial ranking of the final forty crappy designs settled on by the flag committee.

Cacique Caribe, the flag issue is seen as a distraction to other things that are happening here at the moment such as the TPP negotiations.

I knew it!

We get the same "look at these shiny objects" treatment more and more over here too. As if we were so quick to forget the big issues.

Dan

Sorry, Cacique Caribe. I wasn't trying to stop your honest opinion. I was just commenting on the coincidence between what you had said, and the derivation of the current flag, purely out of interest.

What I like about Red Peak is its clever design, combining the traditional Maori taniko weaving pattern, and the current flag:

Maybe – to an outsider it just seems rather bland though I'm afraid – without the "back story" as it were, it doesn't work.