Ep. 63: The Land of Inkin' (a New Flag for Illinois) w/ Maxwell Feldmann

What's up, VexHeads? We've got Maxwell Feldmann in the studio this week, as we go over his design process for a new flag for Illinois! Max is a brilliant young designer who brings history into the future with enthusiasm. His designs have gotten a lot of hype on Reddit and other communities, and that forward-pointing star is just [chef's kiss]. Make sure to check out the SHOW NOTES!

Phew. Glad I got through that without any Illinois-ing puns.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/flagged-for-content--5732422/support.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We've got and.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
A few mug matters. You might even get to standards
and what they're represented to. Just take my voices hand
a little, try to understand this maxill logic podcast. Cause
the factook count, flag food.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Count, what's up Beck's heads? And welcome to episode sixty
three of Flagged for Content. It's the only podcast that's
on its own kind of secret third side in the
War on Christmas, dm me if you want to. It
is also a Flags for Good podcast as always, And

(00:44):
you know it is probably a little too late to
get any flags for Christmas or the holidays this year.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
You know what, it's not too late to.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
Get flags for January twentieth is coming up, So you know,
if you've got any strong feelings on that one way
or well pretty much one way, you can head on
over to flagsfogod dot com slash flagged four content for
like the number and put in that same code when you.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Check out with all those cool flags.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Get yourself a little discount helps the show out a
little bit as well. So happy holidays, y'all, Marry holidays.
Maybe that's the third way I'm taking. I'm going to
keep this even shorter than normal and just say that
Max and I had a fantastic conversation here. We went
way like I think we went to like almost forty

(01:34):
five minutes on the bonus. So if you are a
patron or want to subscribe to the patreon, now is
a fantastic time. Maybe you got holiday money, who knows,
but yeah, we went way over and talked about a
ton of stuff over there on the Patreon. But don't worry.
We got to a lot of stuff in this episode
as well. And speaking of that, you will want to

(01:56):
get into the show notes. Max dropped a ton of
flags and just like info like descriptions like, the show
notes are even more robust than normal. So you know,
when I'm doing these video edits, there's only so much
I can do. I tried to get a lot of
them in there, but sometimes I was like, oh shoot,
I should have put that here or there or whatever. Anyway,

(02:18):
go into the show notes, check it all out. It's
very seamless easy to get through. You will know exactly
what everything is and you'll see some of the stuff
we talk about in the patreons, so that could be
enticing as well. Anyway, I'll stop going on about the Patreon.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
I think. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Like I said, I'm gonna keep it short this week.
That's pretty much it. We didn't have any audio, any
other weird.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Issues like that.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
So since it's the holidays, I'll let you all off
easy and we'll go into the show.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Now.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
Enjoy this episode sixty three with the Maxwell Feldman. We
have got an amazing beckshead on the podcast today. You
know him from his designs on our slash psilology, you
know him from his proposals for a few Texas city flags,
and you know him from his Illinois flag redesigns.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
It's Maxwell Feldmer. What's up, Max? How you been man?

Speaker 4 (03:16):
I've been good. I've just chilling right now. I just
am finishing my studies in her name, and I just
got back from a gap year to do a few internships.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Oh that's exciting.

Speaker 5 (03:29):
Internships where mostly back home where I'm from in San Antonio, Texas,
I did a lot of PR and marketing and that
kind of led me to design, and that that design
kind of led me into the vex head realm, which
is a lot of fun.

Speaker 4 (03:44):
And then I had a chance to work at the
state capitol as well.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Oh nice.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
So that led you into Okay, all right, so I
might see where we're going with the flag.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
They got you into flags? I guess in that sense
it would be no apologies, no, no, no, not a problem.
That is.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
That is very exciting stuff, especially like getting into graphic
design and everything. I assume that gives you a pretty
big in to the vexillology world.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
So we'll go ahead.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
And skip over most of that stuff, but we will
go into what's on the flag bowl today, which relates
to that.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
We've got our usual over and underrated flags.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
We have a lot of ideas on redesigning Illinois, and
some thoughts on civil versus state flags that we don't
tend to usually talk about. All that is said, before
we get to any of that, Max, what is the
flag that got you into flags?

Speaker 4 (04:49):
I would say it's my own home city flag of Santano,
because I think there's such a contrast with the lack
of seeing that flag throughout the and the ubiquitous nature
of the Texas flag, which you will see all over
the state and all outside of the state as well.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
Okay, all right, and so for those of us that
don't know the San Antonio flag, can you briefly describe
that to us?

Speaker 6 (05:16):
Sure. So it's a blue and red bicolor.

Speaker 4 (05:20):
I believe it's actually the same colors as the state
flag and the national flag. And then in the center
there is a white star that covers the entire vertical
length of the flag.

Speaker 6 (05:32):
So the top.

Speaker 4 (05:33):
Vertice vertice vertex called the point, touches the top of
the flag, and then the two southernmost points touched the
bottom of the flag. And then within that white star
there is a somewhat crude depiction of the Alamo, which
is kind of santanious claim to flame.

Speaker 6 (05:52):
And it was one of the turning points in the Texas.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
Revolution, right, Okay, so a lot going on there, including
words I guess.

Speaker 4 (06:04):
We actually we used to have words saying like San Antonio,
but we actually remove them. So actually, so it's technically
according to NAVA, it's one of the more highly rated flags.
I think the two thousand and four NAVA survey rented
as thirteen, if I remember correctly.

Speaker 6 (06:22):
But I think there are a couple of problems with it,
in my opinion.

Speaker 4 (06:25):
One, you don't see it anywhere, and you can say, well,
that's maybe not necessarily the design, but also the the
more like the education and like information available about it.
But in my opinion, while it technically follows like the
guidelines that Ted k laid out and like it's generally good,

(06:46):
I think the idea of the Alamo being such like
a small element you can hardly recognize it, Like it
kind of looks like it was made.

Speaker 6 (06:55):
Of Microsoft paint.

Speaker 4 (06:56):
And that's not necessarily a bad thing, but like in
this case, like the ALBUMA is such a central core
to Santanio's and even Texas's history, that just kind of
reducing it to like a tiny charge that you can
barely see, especially on a waving flag, it doesn't it
doesn't go well with Texans, and I don't think that's
part of the major reason why it's.

Speaker 6 (07:15):
You don't see it flying a lot, and it kind
of just I don't know.

Speaker 4 (07:18):
I mean, it looks fine on a charge on the star,
but I don't think like A matches up super well
in my opinion.

Speaker 3 (07:25):
Right right, I mean that is usually the question when
we get into that is like, uh, how often is
it used?

Speaker 1 (07:32):
And I guess you're saying not that.

Speaker 6 (07:34):
Not at all.

Speaker 4 (07:35):
I only really see it on city Hall And then
there's a small like luxury shopping district in the like
the far northwest part of the city called Lockintara, and
they have it on the flag pole there. But I
have in my entire life, I have never seen the
flag outside of those other than you.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
Know, okay, yeah, yeah, as a yeah, I can relate
to that. In Chattanooga here too, we have it very
bad flag that has flown over. I mean even as
far as government buildings, it's flown over, like one of
them that I can see. But anyway, all right, so hey,
it's still the flag that got you into flags, So

(08:13):
it's still you know, had its purpose. So given that
that was your intro into flags, what would you say, Well,
you can go with either the over or underrated here.
But now that you're into flags, which one do you
think is over or under.

Speaker 4 (08:31):
Well, I know it's less of a surprise to you
now considering we forgot to record the first time.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
But hey, that's a secret.

Speaker 4 (08:38):
I would say my underrated would be Minnesota, the new
right here, the one I asked you to hang for
the specific reason.

Speaker 3 (08:48):
Yeah, all right, and for the listeners first time.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Why do you think why do you think it's underrated?

Speaker 4 (08:58):
Well, general, I think within like the people who like
are less inclined about flags and like kind of their
symbolism and purpose. You know, some people were just generally
resistant to change, and even those who wore more open
like we're asking, you know, why is it this minimalistic?
And then you know, within the vexset community, there's a
lot of people who also ask, you know, why is

(09:20):
it some minimalistic, especially compared to the the original Winter
Finalist design, which was the same layout but except it
was a tri color on the fly side where the
light blue is. And it's kind of unique because like
it was like a little bit less saturated colors, which

(09:40):
people said like generally kind of fitted with like the
wintry element of Minnesota, not to understand that. And then
from my perspective, I think it's kind of visually interested
interesting because you normally think, for like a tri color
fes like that you have white in the middle or
in this this way, but it was actually the top.
I think the color was like green, light blue, white,

(10:03):
or maybe it was white. I forgot the exact order,
but the white was at the top, which is like
interesting because it was like asymmetrical colorwise, the symbolism there
was pretty like direct.

Speaker 6 (10:14):
It was like forest sky slash water.

Speaker 4 (10:18):
Yeah, like snow. It's like there wasn't much to that.
But and I was a little confused first, It's like
why why remove that? But like I totally understand it now,
and from one from like you know, the person who
actually looked in and researched all like the exact meanings,
but also from like the vibes perspective, you know, you know,
because you don't normally think of all those meanings when
you look at a flag.

Speaker 6 (10:38):
You just kind of think.

Speaker 4 (10:39):
Does it look good or does it feel relevant to
the state or cause or identities supposed to represent. So,
like from a vertical perspective, which is actually pretty uncommon flags,
it's depicting the Mississippi River flowing from the north Star.
Not all flags have explicit symbolism two vertical orientations, which

(11:02):
is very unique. The idea of, you know, the two
tone blue, which seems to be a little bit controversial.
I personally like, there's not nothing that says you can't
have a two tone blue. But like the entire war
in Minnesota comes from the Dakota language, which means the
land of sky and water or sometimes sky tinted water.

(11:22):
And I think having that two tone blue emphasizes that duality,
and then when you add a little bit of white
in there, you get like a very wintery feeling, which
kind of substitutes for the slightly muted colors of the
original version of the flag. So you know Minnesota is cold,
that's no secret, especially if you're there right now. It's

(11:44):
I know it's in I'm in the Midwest right now,
and the temperature just dropped, you know, red after Thanksgiving.
So if I'm feeling I know they're feeling it two
times over. And then the stey itself represents basically everyone
it represents. It's a Dakota tribe star. It's affiliated with
that tribe. There's a lot of like barns specifically in

(12:06):
Minnesota that have that type of star, that eight pointed
star hung on it. It's associated with like quilting. I
don't know why it's specifically soda associated with Minnesota, but
apparently it's a big thing. In fact, a lot of
different like designs submitted in the Minnesota flag redesign contests
utilized an eight pointed star. And then it's in the

(12:29):
rotunda representing again the North Star, which doubles as their
state motto and kind of represents that Minnesota is the
northernmost state in the contiguous US state in the US States. Yeah,
so there's all and of course, you know it has
the Minnesota abject shape, the little dark blue K. And

(12:53):
you know, generally I would say, like like shapes don't
look great on the flag. They just look like too
organic in my opinion. Here you can have a very
nice geometric shape. It works well with the rest of
the flag. It's an inverse chevron, and generally chevrons are
a pretty common like motif on some flags. So it's

(13:13):
related in that way, yet very distinct because to my knowledge,
there there is no other flag in the world, definitely
not at the national level, you know, maybe not even
at the you know, state or city level. This is
an inverse chevron, so it very unique in that way.
And then on top of all of that, like some
people complain, you know, there's no loom there. Well, I

(13:35):
mean this is maybe this is probably a bit of
a stretch, but you can sort of imagine the K
shape Minnesota as like the head and the beak of
the bird and then with the star as the eye.
So like if you can, if you want to see
a loon you can, but it's not going to be
forced on you.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
You can if you want.

Speaker 6 (13:54):
Yeah, it's squint enough, you can.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
Yeah you can.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
Like a side and a lot of meanings to flags,
you know, post designing them, right, and I I have
for the flag for the show, so you know, right, And.

Speaker 4 (14:09):
Of course, like you're not gonna think all this all
the time. Well, you know, this is just nerds nerding
out here. But like general passed the overall the vibe
check in Minnesota.

Speaker 3 (14:19):
What anyone who's listening is also a nerd listening to nerds. Yeah,
vibing out on a flag. But yeah, okay, So.

Speaker 1 (14:30):
Well one other thing I did want to mention is
so you talked about like.

Speaker 3 (14:33):
The the barns and the quilting aspects of like this
symbol here. Now I know that as a uniquely Appalachian thing,
So I don't understand how that can also be a
uniquely Minnesota.

Speaker 4 (14:51):
Well a lot of cases, you know, there are coincidences. Right,
It's an eight point star design, so like I wouldn't
be surprised if it's used in other parts of the country,
But like that representation is specific, especially with the orientation.

Speaker 6 (15:06):
Well it's not exactly the same on the flag.

Speaker 4 (15:09):
The quilt slash born star is normally oriented where there
are two points on top and two at the bottom.
And from what I've heard and looked at, like, apparently
that's like a Minnesota thing. No, of course, Like I'm
not from there, so I can't. I don't have all
the details. But like from everyone I talked to and

(15:30):
looked online, everyone basically agrees like that's like a Minnesota
north star.

Speaker 6 (15:36):
But I'm sure like that that doesn't mean like it.

Speaker 4 (15:39):
You know, Minnesota can't have this because Appalachia has claimed
to it, you know. Of course, you know, some flags
are related, you know, by coincidence and not necessarily by
you know, design. You know, I don't think anyone's out
there saying the flag of Arkansas with its diamond is
related or influenced by Brazil's flag, right, you know, are

(16:00):
similar designed but for completely different reasons.

Speaker 3 (16:03):
Yeah, they just both happen to have a rhombus, right,
our favorite shape on this show. All right, So, okay,
so we've gone through everything, but you're overrated, right right,
and go ahead and get into that.

Speaker 4 (16:22):
All right, and don't get your pitch burst out. Yes,
but I think the flag of New Mexico is slightly overrated.
It's an excellent design. They should never change it. But
part of the allure the flag has, like among Americans especially,
is because it's so unique. But I feel like the
layout can be easily copied and applied for a few

(16:45):
other flags where it's simply a solid color field and
a charge on top of that. Like I've seen a
few flags out there, for like like a redesign of
like Massachusetts flag, for example, where you replaced like the
central element with like a single charge on a.

Speaker 6 (17:03):
White field, and I yeah, a few.

Speaker 4 (17:07):
Others out there similar to that, like Kansas. You know,
I think it's kind of a foregone conclusion that there's
going to be a sunflower on that flag at some
point if it and a lot of it is represented
by just the sunflower on a solid colored field, and
I think, you know, that makes New Mexico's flag a
little bit less standout ish. I know, when we did

(17:32):
the the.

Speaker 6 (17:34):
Pre recording, that never happened. Wink wink.

Speaker 4 (17:38):
You know you mentioned that, you know, if it was
among Japanese prefecture flags where they all are designed in
some sort of stylized icon charged on a solid field,
it would still be a great design, but it would
not stand out as much.

Speaker 6 (17:53):
That's that's my that's my point there.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
Yeah, yeah, and and that was my yeah, I mean,
well yeah, my point by making that point was that, like, yes,
it is good design, but as you mentioned, it stands
out because it's in a sea of other US state flags, right,
it doesn't stand out necessarily on its own merits. And

(18:19):
do I think it's a bad flag? No, like by
any means no, But like I think you and I
can pretty much agree on this, like it's.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
It's not a God.

Speaker 3 (18:33):
I'm trying to think of a good way to put
it that we can actually both agree on. It's not
a special flag, like and I guess what I mean
by that is like, it's not it's not one of
a kind, it's one of many. It's just that the
many that it's a similar flag to don't happen to
also reside in the US, like.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
The flags.

Speaker 4 (18:56):
I would say, like the Minnesota flag for better for worse.
We can disagree there is pretty unique because of the
two cone color layout, and I would agree with that
on like an international scale, that's pretty uncommon. It works
really well here, but it's uncommon on a like global scale.

Speaker 6 (19:16):
Yeah, for New Mexico.

Speaker 4 (19:18):
You know, it's really unique among US Nate flags. Among
all the flags of the world, there are some that
follow like the same essential design layout.

Speaker 3 (19:28):
Yeah, I mean, like I mentioned the Japanese prefecture ones
like the like basically anything that has a central element
on a single colored field. Granted, obviously there's gonna be
a lot of variants in those elements for sure.

Speaker 4 (19:44):
But.

Speaker 1 (19:46):
Yeah, the New Mexico one just doesn't, like, I don't know,
it doesn't.

Speaker 6 (19:49):
That being said, you know, yellow, you know, that's a
pretty bold color and it's yellow red, Yeah, it's.

Speaker 4 (19:56):
And you know, you know, it stands out especially among
US state flags because they're also blue generally, and it's
the only US state flag that does not have blue
or white in the in the flag.

Speaker 6 (20:08):
But now that I think about on.

Speaker 4 (20:09):
The global level, like that's still pretty that is kind
of unique with that much yellow. Like some of the
only exceptions I can think of this like Marritwuania which
has a little bit yellow, or like the flag of
Chad in Romania, or like some like yellow accents, but
like very rarely, I can't there's no flag with a

(20:32):
yellow field that comes to mind to me, Oh god, yeah,
maybe so maybe it's a little bit overrated, but not
as over overrated as a thought.

Speaker 3 (20:45):
Yeah, I'm trying to think of them, and of course
my brain's shutting down right when I try.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
But yeah, I mean, what about the what is it the.

Speaker 3 (20:58):
Walloon part of bell Um where they have a yellow
field with a red rooster. I guess, so it's totally
the same thing. You could definitely confuse those two. No,
you couldn't, like, Yes, I think your no like all
jokes aside. I think your placement of it as overrated

(21:19):
is a perfect placement of it, because it's not that
it is not a good flag, and I don't think
either of us are saying that, but.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
It is.

Speaker 3 (21:33):
I don't know, in a different part of the world,
as we pointed out, it would not be the same,
it would not carry the same weight that it currently does.

Speaker 6 (21:40):
In the US. It's it's a fish among land animals, right, yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:45):
Yeah, but no, yeah, is it good flag? Yes? Is
it the best flag?

Speaker 3 (21:52):
No?

Speaker 1 (21:54):
Even in the US? No, I don't think, you know,
go Valls.

Speaker 3 (21:58):
But anyway, all right, so I think that might be
a good place to finally take our first break here.
So we're going to go to that what's that flag
tastic flag pastic place to do it. When we get
back from this flag tastic break, we are going to
get a lot more into Max's Illinois redesigns. That is

(22:22):
the bulk of the show, So stick around for that.
We will get stuck into it very soon here, very back.

Speaker 6 (22:29):
See you on the fly.

Speaker 3 (22:44):
All right, So we are back more with Max Feldman.
But before we get into the Illinois flag redesigns, let's
figure out why it needs a redesign.

Speaker 1 (22:56):
In the first place. So, Max, what are your thoughts
on this?

Speaker 4 (23:00):
So if you look at the Illinois flag as it is,
it's pretty generic and if you weren't from there, you
probably couldn't tell apart from any other state. So they're
in like a somewhat of a like an implied circle.
There is an American eagle holding an American crusted shield,
so with thirteen stripes representing the thirteen original colonies on

(23:23):
a rock that has the numbers eighteen sixty eight and
eighteen eighteen, just on a grass field. There's also olive
bridge underneath the shield, and the American eagle is also
holding a couple of banners saying state sovereignty in National Union.

(23:43):
There's a sense over a what I believe to be
a lake specifically in the background. And also of note,
the wards sovereignty is actually upside down. Yeah, and I
forgot the exact year, but they added the wards Illinois
in something close to aerial work or times New Roman at.

Speaker 6 (24:06):
The bottom of the flag.

Speaker 1 (24:07):
Yeah. It's not ideal.

Speaker 4 (24:10):
Yeah, so generally it's you couldn't tell apart, like if
you look at any of the specific elements, it just
screams American, but doesn't scream Illinois.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
M Yeah, no, agreed. Uh yeah.

Speaker 3 (24:25):
If I didn't know about flags, I would have zero
idea what state this was supposed to be, right, Oh,
it's one of those states that loves sovereignty and eagles.

Speaker 1 (24:37):
Okay, that could be fucking any.

Speaker 6 (24:39):
Of them exactly, who the fuck knows.

Speaker 3 (24:44):
Yeah, so okay, so that's that's why they need the redesign.

Speaker 1 (24:51):
Now what have you done with the redesign? And I guess,
like maybe take.

Speaker 3 (24:54):
Us through kind of the process, like where did you
start and where'd you get?

Speaker 4 (25:01):
Well, I think generally it fails to represent Illinois as
a distinct state. I mean, it discreams I'm an American state.
But it could have been Iowa, for god knows, you know,
it could have been Wisconsin, it could be any US state.
It's like, we know you're a US state, you don't,
you know, you need to show us that and show
us your uniqueness and not just tell us you're an

(25:23):
American state. But there's an interesting piece of history there
that I wanted to preserve and I think some other
designers wanted to preserve. Is actually the state model, state sovereignty,
national union. And that's the banner portion of the flag.
And I think, I mean, I don't think it should
be representing like that, but like an interesting little history

(25:45):
tidbit of it is the model was actually suggested by
the Illinois Secretary of State, Sharon Tyndale, to be reversed
to be national union, state sovereignty, because this was this
model was adopted right after the Civil War.

Speaker 6 (26:03):
The seal was designed in eighteen sixty eight.

Speaker 4 (26:07):
That said, the legislation the Illinois state legislator, they voted
to just keep the model as it is, state sovereignty,
national union in that order, and designer, as a kind
of form of protest, actually.

Speaker 6 (26:24):
Wanted to.

Speaker 4 (26:26):
He he he obliged by the official legislation, but he
kind of had a little bit of a tongue in tweak,
tongue in cheek approach where the word sovereignty is upside down,
making it a little bit less readable and kind of
like in a way, kind of a back at you
type of approach.

Speaker 3 (26:47):
Right, So, is there any deliberate design choice.

Speaker 4 (26:52):
It was like that, I think that should be preserved,
that at least that element of state, sovereign, national union.
But like it's a it's a very cool piece of history.
The rest of design is just super generic. But like that,
I think that's kind of a special thing that really
only Illinois can claim.

Speaker 3 (27:11):
Yeah, it's definitely a weird one, like the only like
you know how Southwest.

Speaker 1 (27:16):
Airlines has the flagplanes.

Speaker 3 (27:19):
The flagplanes, Yes, Southwest Airlines they have like U flag liveries.
Oh yeah, yes, yes, yeah. The only one that I've
ever flown on was the Illinois one.

Speaker 6 (27:33):
Really, and I was.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
Getting annoyed because, yeah, the because the sovereignty word was
upside down, which, like I know, it is on the
flag too, like as we just said, but it was
so like I was.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
Like, God, like there's so many better. This is the
worst of the flagplanes that I could be on, right,
which I think is probably pretty much where we're going
with this discussion. Is it's like, man, like I love
being on a flag livery plane.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
I just wish it wasn't this one the way that
it's currently constructed.

Speaker 6 (28:12):
Right, you got the short end of the stick.

Speaker 1 (28:14):
Like really, like give me the Texas flag. God, I
know I had I.

Speaker 3 (28:19):
Had killed for Yeah anyway, Yeah, I know what you
mean about the upside down ship.

Speaker 6 (28:24):
It's a nonsense right, complete dog shit.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
Yeah anyway, continue.

Speaker 6 (28:31):
So in my so I wanted to like take a
stab at redesign.

Speaker 4 (28:34):
So like I got into this sphere actually relatively early,
as I kind of mentioned, and like actually I was
thinking about submitting to the Minnesota flag design contest, but
like by the time I knew it existed, like the
deadline has passed like a week ago. So like I'm
not I'm happy with how it turned out, so that's
all that matters. So like, and when this came out
and I was like, well, I'm not technically from Illinois,

(28:56):
but I'm in South Bend, Indiana, Illinois's like within an
hour drive here and going to here, I've driven the
entire length of state from Cairo at the very south
southern tip to Chicago.

Speaker 6 (29:09):
Yeah, so like while you know, so I wanted to
take us out of it.

Speaker 4 (29:13):
And of course I knew I was coming from a
disadvantage not coming here or not being a resident here
and not growing up here.

Speaker 6 (29:21):
So I wanted to be very deliberate in how I
approached this.

Speaker 4 (29:24):
You know, the research and you know, and of course
I could do all the research I want, but at
the end of the day, you know, I should be
able to look at the flag or more played, not me,
but Illinois zens should look at the flag and think
that feels like Illinois to me. So the main element
I started with was the state model, state cerembridy and

(29:47):
national union. And how I represent that at first was
having a keeping the white field for its sake of continuity,
adding a blue disc putting twenty stars in a circle
inside that blue disc got the very periphery of it,
and then in the middle having a larger white star

(30:07):
representing Illinois itself, with the twenty stars representing the twenty
stars admitted to the Union prior to Illinois right. And
then because I before I did the research, I added
a orange ring around that blue disc because seemingly a
lot of other people said that was the unofficial Illinois color,

(30:30):
which I'm starting to think not really, it's more just
the flagship university there.

Speaker 3 (30:36):
I was gonna say, like it reminds me of the
Chicago Bears, you know, right, the orange and the blue
and the white, and.

Speaker 4 (30:45):
Apparently the University of Illinois their colors is that like
dark blue and orange. Okay, And I didn't want to
link to heavily that because I feel like, you know,
I mean, sports brands are great. You know, if you
go to Michigan, for example, like you won't they have
a not great flag, but like the basically the day

(31:05):
Factor flag, there is the University of Michigan flag, which
is just like a big, big old yellow.

Speaker 6 (31:12):
M on a blue field. You know, that's like a substitute.

Speaker 4 (31:15):
But you know, sports teams can move, you know, in
their corporations. So I feel like, you know, that's that's
a substitute, but it shouldn't be like the main source
of inspiration for creating flags of governments or.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
People's Yeah, yeah for sure.

Speaker 3 (31:31):
So that's your first one, and we'll have it up
on the screen here for the viewers.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
But that was your first iteration, which.

Speaker 3 (31:38):
Is the five pointed star in the circle of how
many twenty you said.

Speaker 4 (31:45):
Twenty twenty stars for the twenty prior states amid to
the Union before Illinois, and then okay.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
Illinois is the star first state.

Speaker 4 (31:53):
In other words, yes, twenty one stars total, including Illinois itself.

Speaker 3 (31:57):
All right, and the kind of like I mean, I
guess like for lack of a better color comparison for listeners,
I would say, it's like kind of the bears blue
and orange, yeah, bears, and you.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
Know, and the white. But right, a right, So where
do you go from there?

Speaker 4 (32:15):
So I did a little bit more research, and like
the general gist I got was like illinoy was well,
of course it was a free state technically, I mean, unfortunately,
like slavery was still permitted in like some like exclusive
cases and not just in Illinois in other states, but
like generally as a free state. And obviously, like Abraham
Lincoln in his roles in Illinois.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
There was some president from there, if I remember, right.

Speaker 4 (32:40):
Right, that's right, he was the one who kept the
nation together. Would have thought so obviously like appellently apparently,
like as you can imagine, like there's a lot of
Lincoln iconography all over the state. Yeah, but I didn't
want to just slap on a top act, you know,

(33:00):
onto the flag. I feel like there I couldn't find
a way to just make that work. Well, like I've
seen other like designs out there that do that, but
none of them.

Speaker 6 (33:08):
Just look visually appealing. And I've seen a few.

Speaker 4 (33:12):
Other there's a lot of where like black represents Lincoln
because of a black political politician suit, but I couldn't
quite find it. So I wanted to emphasize like union
both with a capital and lercase you one. So the

(33:33):
circle you start with there is a union of stars,
and I promise I'll get to the other iterations soon.
Do you have a union of stars? Has a few
meanings there, one of course, just the number of states
before Illinois, but also in like the Midwest, and I
would say especially in Illinois and Iowa, I probably I

(33:55):
don't think I could get away with this in like Indiana. Well,
actually Indiana, well Indie has a pretty good flag with
that circle starts, but I probably couldn't get away with
it in like North Dakota or Wisconsin. Is the idea
of communities, So of course, like Illinois, you know, there's
obviously a very stark divide between Chicago and the rest

(34:16):
of the state, but in the rest of the state
generally people are within like fifteen minutes of like some
sort of small town that they can gather on, even
if they're like a pretty real farmer, and there's a
lot of like small sized cities in Illinois. Yeah, so
I wanted to add that aspect of like Midwestern communal

(34:37):
community coming together, that type of sensation.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
As my Midwestern friend calls it, Midwest excellence.

Speaker 4 (34:45):
Yes, absolutely, so I wanted to do that, and it
still you know, keeps the state celebrity National Union aspect
of it. But then I wanted to do a little
bit more so Apparently white already was substituting or representing
something that I don't think you can really accurately represent

(35:07):
in vexillology. It has to be somewhat abstracted. Is the
idea of government transparency? Yeah, well, as I said, Illinois
being a free state and its role there, but also
government transparency. And something I did not is that like
two or three prior governors of Illinois were arrested and
put behind bars for corruption.

Speaker 6 (35:28):
Wait, like recently, I think within like the last thirty years.

Speaker 3 (35:34):
Yeah, who's the one that Blagojevich. He was the one
that tried to sell Obama's senate see right, I think so,
And then I forget who No, not Pritzker because he's
the current Yeah, I forget who the other one was.

Speaker 6 (35:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (35:52):
So, like, I mean, it's kind of ironic, but like
at some time as part of the ideal, and part
of that is the again, you know, the communal aspect.
And then white also serves maybe somewhat countertitively for some people,
but makes sense when you talk about it.

Speaker 6 (36:09):
The idea of like.

Speaker 4 (36:10):
Agricultural society, because a lot of people will just do
like green or yellow for the land, right, it's not
very unique, and we see that in a lot of
like amateur designs. It's just like green bar land. It's like, okay,
we all know that you have land. You know, all
these places have land. You have to uniquely represent that.

(36:31):
But the idea of like like simplicity is the simple
type of life style. I think this is more appealing
to the like the vast majority in terms of land,
not population where I think sure, Like I think the
population split is like nearly fifty to fifty between like
Chicagoland and rust of the state, but the idea of
like simplicity and honesty, because I think Illinoians are honest

(36:55):
people who aren't like super flashy, but they know how
to work hard and they know how to treat others
with respected dignity. I think white as being like the
dominant color really alludes to that fact, and I think
that kind of ties into the agricultural element. And then
on top of that, you know, it matches very well

(37:16):
with the Chicago flag already, so like it matches, but
it's not a Chicago dominated style. So like, if you
look up, like you know, Illinois flag redesigns, a lot
of them will just have very Chicago a remnists of flags.

Speaker 6 (37:32):
Right, Yeah, I wanted to avoid that as much as possible.

Speaker 3 (37:36):
I was gonna say, like not to butt in too much,
but like, yeah, that is the problem with most Illinois
redesigns is they tend to always, like I mean, even
if they end up being a bit like one or
two of yours, they always have the six pointed like star,
they always have the Chicago star, and they always generally

(37:58):
anyway have a in its color, even if it's white.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
Fambriated or whatever, and like.

Speaker 3 (38:06):
To the point where, like I've talked to so many
people from Illinois that say, we are not Chicago exactly. Yes,
Chicago is part of Illinois, but we are not.

Speaker 4 (38:16):
Sure, right, So I wanted to, you know, and I
think like the reason for that is, like there's not
a lot of obvious symbolism for Illinois, and people are
just trying to grasp onto something. It's like, Okay, what
is Illinois. Chicago's Illinois, so we're going to use that
as a base, right, Like you can't do that because
you're alienating the rest.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
Of the state exactly.

Speaker 4 (38:36):
I mean there's already so much like stark division between
the state, you know that manifests and culture and politics,
so you really you can't start there. It's nice that
it complements the Chicago flag my design, but it's not Yes,
mimicking the Chicago right, right.

Speaker 3 (38:52):
Complimenting is is infinitely preferable, Yeah, because like if we
had like I'm trying to think of like every state's
equivalent to that, right, and like, uh, one of the
only states that I've lived in is Tennessee, and like
if we had that equivalent, it would just be the
Tennessee flag, but with like a a badly like a

(39:16):
guitar in the middle instead of three stars, it would
just have a guitar or something, or if it tried
to represent all the different parts of Tennessee, it would
have like a guitar, a banjo and a.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
Trumpet or something like our quarter did. But then that
just looks like.

Speaker 4 (39:33):
Shit, right, And there are some other ones that do that,
you know again, as I mentioned with like linked with
like a top at that just seems like a little
bit too like cartoony. I just and then some like
represents like either like corn, which one isn't very It's well,
Illinois has a massive agricultural output. It's like that's not
distinguished enough from like it's not distinct enough from Iowa, Nebraska, and.

Speaker 6 (39:57):
It's a bit on the nose. It's a bit kind
of st typical, right.

Speaker 4 (40:00):
I don't like if you just put like a corn
emblem as like here's the new flag in Nebraska, I
don't think that would fly with just.

Speaker 3 (40:08):
Like it would be like if New York States flag
just had like the Statue of Liberty in the middle.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
It's like most of the like most of the people
in that state.

Speaker 3 (40:18):
Maybe not statistically because so many people live in New York,
but like do not have anything in common with that
symbol or give a shit about that symbol, right.

Speaker 6 (40:28):
And you'd be surprised.

Speaker 4 (40:29):
Like I've seen, like I've done like a redesign of
the New York State flag, but like I've seen plenty
of New York City flag redesigned proposals with just the
Empire State Building or and then yes, even the state.

Speaker 6 (40:42):
A lot of people like will use.

Speaker 4 (40:43):
The Empire State Building as like a state emblem. It's like,
you can't do that, and in fact, the Empire State
Building was not like the the nickname the Empire State
came before the building. That's what the building is named after,
not the other. Yeah, so you have to go in
a little bit deeper than that.

Speaker 3 (41:04):
Yeah, it's just like I you know, like it's it's
an exercise in I guess it could be kind of
fun if you want to think of it that way,
to think about, like if every state had their flag
redesign on just the thing they're most famous for. But like, yeah,
you shouldn't, like it's an exercise for a reason, Like

(41:27):
you don't actually treat state flags that way. Like, please
don't make my state flag have like the bass Pro
Shop pyramid in the middle, or the Batman building in Nashville,
or even the fucking Tennessee Aquarium.

Speaker 1 (41:43):
Like I don't want any of that shit in the flag.
I think part of the reason that Tennessee one works.

Speaker 3 (41:48):
Is because, like it does lump in the three distinct regions,
but it just leaves them as stars. It does not
make one a banjo and one a trumpet. It leaves
them as star and it says, hey, that's good enough.
There are three of them. Yeah, I think the more
like specific and like into the weeds you get with it,

(42:11):
like stuff like that, the less that it works, Like
you can't put the Chicago star in.

Speaker 1 (42:17):
You can't put like you're not gonna put like the
bean in because that's even more specific.

Speaker 3 (42:21):
Right, like you know, like leave it, leave it vague
but relevant, like like tie into things but not as.

Speaker 1 (42:35):
I don't know, like hyper specific elements exactly.

Speaker 4 (42:39):
And like I think, like and I've seen a lot
of designs that like include some reference to Chicago but
also references to like the rest of state, but like
they're they're more specific than just like generic stars on
like that yeah, try star like they will use the
Chicago like star, like a red star, specifically red six
point star, and then they will have like a corn
belt thing.

Speaker 6 (43:00):
It's like, you you.

Speaker 4 (43:02):
Can't do that, you know, you have to have some
sort of abstraction there where I was like, and I
think Ted Kay said this on your own podcast one time,
like you have like it's better to have like a
symbol that represents everybody, and with like the flag of
like Montreal and.

Speaker 6 (43:16):
Quebec, it looks somewhat okay.

Speaker 4 (43:19):
Visually, I think it can use a little bit of
work because it's kind of if you can just put
that up you have like four flowers representing the four
like major ethnicities yep, and then they added like one
like retrospectively to represent the indigenous population there. Yeah, I
mean visually it looks a little bit unbalanced because it
feels like with like the identical conference, you should have

(43:40):
like an a dentical element. But like there's always going
to be a possibility of like your excluding one people
in Canada has like a lot of like Asian immigrants.
I'm sure maybe in twenty or three years people are
going to ask, hey, why am I not represented on
this flag. I'm Asian, but I'm you know, I'm completely
Canadian and you know, yeah, I'm completely uh a, I'm

(44:02):
a totally a montreal I don't I don't know the
duenem for Montreal people, but like I made totally a
contributing citizen of Montreal represented on my flag. So I
think you know what you know your state flag does
of Tennessee? Does it really well? Because it has the
three regions and that's pretty I would say that's pretty

(44:23):
unique because I think like you're the only state that
has like I forgot the exact system, but you each
region has like legal representation in your government to some degree.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
Uh uh devolved I think is the term.

Speaker 4 (44:38):
But like yeah, yeah, right, but it's inclusive enough of everyone.
Everyone's like each region is balanced. But then like the
each region isn't excluding a major population within that or
like CEEO typing them either.

Speaker 6 (44:54):
Yeah, and they're they're unified. They're literally in a circle.

Speaker 4 (44:58):
Yeah, So I think that that well, So sorry, I
know that was a bit of a tangent, but.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
No, it's okay.

Speaker 3 (45:18):
I started that tangent before we get into our second break.
I would love for you to go over what's my
favorite version of your flag, which is the one with
a blue stripe across the middle, Just like briefly go
into that one, and like you've already touched on a
lot of the design elements. I'd love for you, especially
to go into more on the star there, and just like,

(45:41):
why there's that stripe a blue stripe with a white
on either side, because I suspect he goes into the
centennial stuff.

Speaker 4 (45:48):
Of course, So like I'm assuming you have those flags
on screen, and if you could also just put up
the Illinois Centennial flag designed by Wallace Sprice within that
this community that seems to be a very well flag.

Speaker 6 (46:00):
Is like why not just use this state flag? Which
is a great idea. And so I don't can.

Speaker 1 (46:06):
I say I don't fucking like that centennial flag. I
do not like it. We may think yours corrects what
I don't like about it.

Speaker 6 (46:16):
Yeah, I visually like it.

Speaker 4 (46:18):
I think there's one era that may be slightly problematic,
and I can go explain that. So if you started
with like the center star disc flag, I weirdly enough,
I was thinking, okay, how do I represent what Rice
already represented? Because the top ten stars represent the northern
states admitted to the Union, the Free States, and the

(46:40):
southern The bottom ten stars represent the southern states that
permitted slavery.

Speaker 6 (46:48):
So I was.

Speaker 4 (46:48):
Actually trying to represent that, and I don't think in retrospect,
I don't think that was a good idea, but it
worked to the design I got where I corrected that issue.
So I was actually trying to do something similar to
the Greenland flag. Believe or not, were like, I invert
the colors at on on each half, and then in

(47:12):
doing that, before I inverted the colors, I was I
had the bicolor design which you can see on screen,
and it was like, wait a minute, this actually looks
good and there's actually a lot of meaning here. So
Illinois is also known for the Hockey amounts, which are

(47:32):
the essentially the like Aztec and Mine equivalents of Illinois.
It's like the first people there, the first major civilizations.
It's actually really big, but let's just it's just buried
on their history and even before, like even during Columbian times,
it was long gone by that point. No one actually
knows how that civilization ended. But like the mountains are,

(47:54):
you know, you can still see some of the mountains
and because that blue circle is super imposed partially on
the blue stripe of the same color, you get a
little bit of a hump effect. And it's like that
looks a lot like a hooey amount. It looks like
a mound coming out from the ground.

Speaker 1 (48:13):
Okay, I have like.

Speaker 4 (48:16):
The same symbolism as I had before, but now I
had the cohok amounts because it's a byicolor. I have
the plains, the Illinois Plains, which takes up the vast
majority of the state. At the time, I was thinking, Okay,
how do I represent this? Do I do like green
like dotted with like purple dots to represent like the

(48:37):
state flower, violets? And it's like none of those work.
None of them were like super like emblematic of the state.
While violets or the state flower they don't. They don't
have that resonance in terms of like, yeah, that's that's
fucking Illinois right there, in not Minnesota or something like that.
But I have now I had a little bit more symbolism.

(48:59):
And then I looked back at the centennial flag. It's like, okay,
what have I changed that blue stripe to be in
the center a little bit smaller and then it has
the same sort of symbolism, but instead the planes symbolism
maybe is a little bit weakened because now you have
three stripes, so you can say, like one of the

(49:21):
stripes are the clouds and the sky, and then the
bottom stripe is the land. It's not as direct. And
same for the Coca mountains. Now you have like two
smaller humps, so you can still say they're both the
Coca mumps, but it's not it's not quite as stark
as the single hump on the Bicolor design. Right, And

(49:42):
so now I have like the basic design down. I
think the tricolor, as I think you would agree with,
this just looks a little bit more appealing.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
I mean, yeah, like not a little bit infinitely right
to me.

Speaker 4 (49:57):
To me, I like, like for me, I like the
constant up of the Bicolor war in terms of like
what it's trying to do.

Speaker 6 (50:03):
But visually, I think the tri color is just so
much better.

Speaker 1 (50:06):
I think the tricolor just works so well. And like
so I think, like, I mean, the way that I
would put it is that your tricolor is doing everything.

Speaker 3 (50:16):
That the Centennial flag tried to do, yes, but better.
It has these weird stars that kind of build up
to like it looks like a.

Speaker 1 (50:28):
Sideways rocket ship or something.

Speaker 4 (50:31):
Right, But then here's where I'm about to actually address
the exact thing.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
So all right, let's get into it.

Speaker 4 (50:37):
So I have like just a regular star, like without
the little like cut out without living Okay, right though,
based on the research, like Illinois just seems to be
like a huge place of progress obviously Abraham Lincoln, but
then like obviously Chicago, like outside Chicago to like rail
huge ack of cultural input, like it's been generally like

(50:58):
a very progressive state. I mean I can list specifics.
I don't have all of them memorized, but like from
the gist of like the them all memory is like
a place of progress that moves the nation ford so
and forward.

Speaker 6 (51:13):
Huh.

Speaker 4 (51:14):
And then I actually had designs for the Wisconsin state flag.
It's like as you probably know, like all the redesigns
have like that like hollowed out chevron, a lot of them,
like you know, flags for good actually sells like that
exact one. There's just a star towards the hoist, and
then there's a little like severn, not a full triangle

(51:37):
at the hoist, but a little hollow one.

Speaker 1 (51:40):
Yeah, it looks like the.

Speaker 4 (51:43):
Exactly and basically everyone has already did every iteration of
that sort of design, so it was like and I
was just doing it for fun. It's like, Okay, how
do I actually make mine unique and not just like
a regurgitation someone else's design? And I came up with
that like arrowhead star design, and you know, because the
state model is forward and that's a unique way to

(52:04):
do it.

Speaker 1 (52:04):
It's like this.

Speaker 4 (52:05):
Actually works, Like I don't think this would work in
any other state outside of Wisconsin Illinois, but Illinois is
just the one other state where like there's a justified
use here and its substitutes for the little arrow constellation
that Lysis design has, and it also avoids The main
problem is he's stratifying the northern and southern states, and like,

(52:26):
I know that's kind of history and with the Civil War,
but I feel like if we like, for lack of
a better word, fetishize that too much, Like I feel
like that can be problematic. You know, we may be
emphasizing division more than unity. So my circle stars has
the unity part, but the arrowhead has like the progress
moving forward part of it. And then with both the

(52:49):
byicolor and the tricolor. I move that entire disc and
the stars in it towards the hoist one because of
visually looks better, but two but also to simplize that,
you know, progress is never complete. There's always things to
be done, and Illinois is continually moving the nation forward
and it hasn't come to completion.

Speaker 3 (53:09):
My god, Yeah, that's even more brilliant than I thought
it was, because yeah, like I mean, I love it
on it's just like design merits alone in the sense
of I thought, Okay, it's progress, it's progressing forward. It's
an arrow pointing in that direction. Like obviously the rest
of it makes it a star, but yeah, the kind

(53:32):
of like subtle well ish lines around it in regards
to the other points to make it yet technically incomplete, which,
as you said, yeah, progress is pretty much always incomplete.

Speaker 6 (53:49):
So and then like.

Speaker 4 (53:51):
I didn't get to this earlier, but like there's a
lot of union, which I think like it kind of
replaces like a more like.

Speaker 1 (53:58):
On the nose national union, but state's national union.

Speaker 4 (54:02):
But also Lincoln so like the white like if they
are American colors, old glory, blue, white field, like the
blue is the same as in the national flag, which
represents union again with a capital U and lower case U.

Speaker 6 (54:16):
It's a union.

Speaker 4 (54:17):
Of stars because it's circle and it also harks back
to the Betsy Ross flag like one of the like
the original design of the American flag when there's still
only thirteen colonies and then states. It goes again to
the state motto, but like it's in a unified design too,
so state sovereignty is still within the circle stars, so

(54:39):
it's not it's not emphasizing too much on the state sovereignty,
kind of going back to the the upside down sovereignty
word on the current.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
Flag national state sovereignty, right, and then.

Speaker 4 (54:52):
I wish I didn't get to this earlier, but like
it does the same thing with the what the try
star design does in Tennessee flag with the tribe color
fez in here. Because Illinois generally is designed is divided
up into three distinct regions. There's generally like the northern region,
which is basically Chicago Land, but also kind of like

(55:14):
the like right outside of Iowa and Wisconsin, there's like
a lot of suburbs and like kind of small cities there.
There's Central Illinois, which is like basically the huge like
agricultural output is you know, it's kind of what you
think of Illinois outside of Chicago.

Speaker 6 (55:28):
Saw the fields and farms in agriculture.

Speaker 4 (55:31):
And then there's Southern Illinois, which is kind of like
Central Illinois, but it's it's more southern in culture as
you can imagine with a state being that long. So
and like I didn't start with the Centennial flag, but
like that was kind of the end result. Like the
influence of the Centennial flag came at the very end,

(55:52):
specifically with like turning it from a bicolor to a
tricolor design. Yeah, and so everything came together. And once
I saw like the bi color and then especially the
tri color, I was like, this is the damn flag.

Speaker 6 (56:06):
This is it. This is Illinois right here.

Speaker 4 (56:09):
So I saved that for a couple of weeks, submitted
my design as like as soon as the contest opened,
Like I tried at midnight and I was like, okay,
it's probably gonna be at like eight am, and of
course it was eight am Central time.

Speaker 6 (56:25):
So I submitted submitted those as soon as I could.

Speaker 4 (56:28):
There's like some technical glitches like for the first fifteen minutes,
so I wasn't number one, but my designs were numbers.

Speaker 6 (56:35):
Three and four.

Speaker 4 (56:38):
I didn't submit the my original design. It was like
it's really good, but like I just feel like there's
some stuff missing. Weirdly enough, I like I submitted basically
a modified centennial flag where I replaced the central star
with my version of the star.

Speaker 6 (56:55):
Like I kind of regret that. It was like it
kind of like.

Speaker 1 (56:59):
Maybe how many did you get to submit?

Speaker 6 (57:01):
Up to three?

Speaker 4 (57:02):
So I submitted the bye color, the tricolor, and then
the modified Centennial flag.

Speaker 6 (57:07):
Okay, right, I probably shoudn't submitted the third one.

Speaker 4 (57:09):
Like the symbolism is a bit redundant with the both
the chevron of stars and the.

Speaker 6 (57:15):
Arrowhead start some time.

Speaker 4 (57:18):
But like, as you said, like I kind of my
pitch was this is a great centennial flag but modified
so it was a little bit less problematic and has
a bunch of other symbolism baked in.

Speaker 3 (57:28):
Right, Yeah, yeah, I mean, uh, I think.

Speaker 1 (57:34):
You'd done good. When when will you hear anything from that?

Speaker 5 (57:39):
Well?

Speaker 4 (57:39):
I really wanted to hear something by the by the
time we're filming this podcast, So like they said, no later,
but then.

Speaker 1 (57:48):
We can redo, we can redo all of it.

Speaker 4 (57:51):
But no later than the first of January. Uh okay, so,
like we only have a month left. I would assume
they would do it before then, But I like the
Minnesota contest where they publicly like released all the submissions
for everyone to see. Right, we won't see any of
the designs until they select the top ten, so we

(58:12):
will only see the top ten finalists.

Speaker 3 (58:15):
And how how serious are they going to be with
those top ten? Like, are is it definitely going to
be one of those top ten? And if so, are
they going to do like with the current flag, is
one of those ten?

Speaker 1 (58:33):
Or is the eleventh one?

Speaker 4 (58:35):
Or?

Speaker 6 (58:36):
Oh right?

Speaker 1 (58:37):
So that yet?

Speaker 4 (58:38):
So they didn't say for a while, but like two
months later there was some press release where they said,
so it's going to be the top ten, alongside the
current flag, the centennial flag, and then the squat I
forgot you say, the squad centennial, the one hundred and
fifty year anniversary.

Speaker 1 (58:55):
The susquet La.

Speaker 4 (58:58):
So like they the public will be able to vote
among the top ten finalists plus those three historic flags.

Speaker 3 (59:05):
Okay, okay, gotcha, So there will be thirteen to be voted.

Speaker 1 (59:11):
On, yes, gotcha.

Speaker 3 (59:12):
So as for my design, there's no cap on how
many of your three make it in like you could
have three of the thirteen.

Speaker 1 (59:19):
You probably statistically won't, but you could.

Speaker 6 (59:22):
Right theoretically, I guess.

Speaker 4 (59:24):
So with the tricolor, I'm cautiously optimistic, Like I feel
like it's a very solid design, has a lot of meaning.
The only thing is one like they really emphasize, you know,
what is your connection to Illinois? Yeah, and like I mentioned,
like I've been through state multiple times, I've turned through,
but like I hope my lack of residency doesn't hurt
me anyway.

Speaker 6 (59:45):
It seems like they're taking it pretty seriously.

Speaker 4 (59:47):
Because like they're going to schools and like kind of
educating like kids about this opportunity, try and get like
feedback input from them. Yeah, and I feel like that
would be like a great kind of I think, like
kids and their imagination, it's probably good like litmus test.
I mean, yes, but like they're getting people involved, which
seems optimist optimistic to me.

Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
They probably want their own Benny Benson story where it's like, oh,
we had a child who was, you know, twelve years
old at one of our schools who came up with this.
Like they probably want some kind of story like that.

Speaker 4 (01:00:25):
Right, So Unfortunately I don't have that, so that could
be like one like one of.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
The game like a then budget for you, right.

Speaker 6 (01:00:34):
And then the other is like I really appreciate how
much you love that star you mentioned in the discord.
You mentioned it to me personally.

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
I honestly like, yeah, that's not well.

Speaker 3 (01:00:43):
I mentioned that to you before you were well, I
mentioned that before you were in the discord. I was like, hey, guys,
here's this guy's flag. I really like this fucking star.

Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
What do y'all think?

Speaker 4 (01:00:54):
It's like I was trying to find a discord as
like the day after I emailed you, so like I
see it as a joint. It was like, oh, there's
there's my design with being solicited for feedback.

Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
Yeah yeah, I was gonna say it was like the yeah,
the day after, I guess right.

Speaker 4 (01:01:09):
But anyway, so like I mean, I've posted this in
r slash specxology on aroud it generally very positive, and
then I also posted on r slash Chicago for whatever
reason I wanted to do on r slash Illinois, but like,
I don't know what the posting settings on there, like
it basically just deleted as.

Speaker 6 (01:01:26):
Soon as I went up, and I tried a couple
of times, so I gave up there.

Speaker 4 (01:01:29):
But Chicago has more that Separate has more. The Chicago
subreddit has more uh redditors and Illinois. I guess maybe
maybe that's not a big surprise, but like generally it
was also positive.

Speaker 6 (01:01:41):
But like the star was like the biggest point of controversy.

Speaker 4 (01:01:45):
I mean, there's there's gonna be people who like saying like, no,
we don't want a flag designed. Like I even posted
like the what do you think of the centennial flag
on that subreddit and like that was like really negative.
So like generally, like people who aren't in that community,
like you know, people can be pretty resistant to change. Yeah,
and like you saw that with like the main flag

(01:02:05):
resign where the original nineteen oh one flag, Yeah, insert
flag here lost to the current flag, which is essentially
just you know, it's just to seal on a bedsheet.
Part of it is just how they conducted the you know,
the survey. I think, like I think it's on the
same ballot as like you know, the presidential and like yeah,

(01:02:28):
like your congressman ballot there, but like there's no pictures
or anything, so like I think that's part of it.

Speaker 6 (01:02:33):
But like I think people are.

Speaker 4 (01:02:34):
Also generally resistant to change, So you know, part of
it is good design, but part of it is marketing
and really getting it out to people and persuading them
and just disseminating the flag out there's people can see
it in the wild. So I think that's like the
other kind of bigger caveat to my flag is that star,

(01:02:56):
because like I've heard a few jokes saying like it
looks like a Space Force flag or like a like
Star Trek flag, like those stars are a little bit different,
but like I sort of see what they're getting at,
even though.

Speaker 3 (01:03:11):
Sure, I guess like in that same vein though it
looks like a like mouse pointer, like like you know,
like yeah, okay, it looks like a.

Speaker 1 (01:03:20):
Triangle that tapers, like sure, there's a lot of shit
that does that. Like yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:03:31):
Yeah it might be a victim of its time with
Space Force coming coming around.

Speaker 4 (01:03:35):
Yeah, Like that was never the it was so much
like actually I actually emailed the committee saying, look if
that like design is too controversial. And this was way
after this was like a month two months ago. I
did this like two times. I think like, here's expands
symbolism because they limited They limited you to only five

(01:03:56):
characters of describing your symbolism, and then a five more
for up in your connection to Illinois. It's like, okay,
I'm not going to be able to get everything there.
I prepared a five hundred word symbolism description. It was like,
oh shit, it's even less than that. So I had
to really narrow things down very quickly. And then so
I was like, committee, thank you so much for your work.

(01:04:18):
I just wanted to provide a little bit more of
an expanded description of my design and the symbolism. And
as you've saw in your your email, it was just
a really long essay of sorts of all the symbolism there.
And then later it's like, okay, this design may be
a little bit controversial because of the star. I want
just to be safe if there's any chance they could

(01:04:39):
replace it with like a normal star, should that be
in their discussion or because they said nothing about like
modifying designs compared to minnso they just said like vote
on the top ten.

Speaker 1 (01:04:49):
I saw you. You sent those to me as well
for yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:04:53):
So I was like, here's here's like an alternative version
with a regular star, just in case that's like that's
what it takes in case that's like another appelles heel.

Speaker 6 (01:05:05):
Uh, so I feel pretty cool.

Speaker 4 (01:05:07):
I would make it, but like they're you know, those
are probably the two biggest pitfalls I would prevent it
from making it.

Speaker 3 (01:05:14):
See, I've never been to Illinois, uh, including Chicago.

Speaker 6 (01:05:20):
Never been eve in Chicago.

Speaker 3 (01:05:22):
Now no, I no, it's one of my blind spots.

Speaker 1 (01:05:28):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:05:28):
But and so like I I guess like by saying that,
all I mean is like I can't speak to what
the people in Illinois like feel and think about what
their flag should be.

Speaker 1 (01:05:42):
But I just feel.

Speaker 3 (01:05:46):
Like it's so obviously this first one, the tricular one.

Speaker 4 (01:05:50):
I agree, and I know, yeah, where's the eagle even
though like the eagle says nothing about Illinois and American Then.

Speaker 3 (01:06:00):
You're modified submission number three like with the you know,
without it looking as quote unquote space force or whatever. Right, Like,
honestly I would take that any day. I'd slightly prefer
the other one, but like right, people don't want to
turn to star though.

Speaker 6 (01:06:21):
Yeah, I've done a couple. Like I'd have another modification.

Speaker 4 (01:06:24):
I don't know if it's in your email, but I
put in the discord where it's like it's the like
the edges are outlined in that orange color. Uh oh yeah,
So I can basically like say, I can show the
arrowhead like it's clearly pointing to the right to the
fly without like having it be a broken star, so

(01:06:46):
it can still be distinct and I kind of have
that symbolism without making it if it looks too spacey
to people, and like technically you can have the same
symbolism with a regular star, but generally people will say,
like I got a comment saying, like, why is it
start drunk because it's not obvious it's pointing to the
right because we're so used to stars pointing up, So

(01:07:09):
like a lot of people saw like without the like
it being broken, right, it's pointing like.

Speaker 6 (01:07:15):
To like about like one or two o'clock.

Speaker 1 (01:07:19):
Yep.

Speaker 6 (01:07:19):
So I mean we'll see.

Speaker 4 (01:07:21):
I mean it's it's in the hands of the committee
and then Illinois voters.

Speaker 3 (01:07:27):
Yeah, not the best hands, but you know, we'll see. Well,
that's probably a good enough place to close out the
regular part of the show.

Speaker 1 (01:07:38):
We will stick around and talk.

Speaker 3 (01:07:40):
For a few more on the bonus bit of the show,
but for now, for the time being, what do you have,
if anything uh to plug and that that can include
places to get your flag voted for the most et cetera,
et cetera. You know, I don't know if that's in
the cards here, but you take it away.

Speaker 4 (01:08:03):
Well, I mean, if you really want to support this flag,
you can. I have it.

Speaker 6 (01:08:08):
Just on chains dot org. Not to like convince anyone.

Speaker 4 (01:08:11):
That's not my job, that's committees, but just to have
the public information out there so you can look up
Illinois flag redesign by Maxwell Felman. I have a few
other state flags and city flags out there. Some of
them are better than others, so I would say Santania
flag redesign, specifically the Alamo Rose Window flag for the

(01:08:34):
city of Santenna, and then I also have the Capital
Star flag for the city of Austin.

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
Hell. Yeah, yeah, well awesome. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:08:44):
I will have all of those links up in the
show notes as well as on the screen for the
viewers more as the show goes. Do you guys know
you can find us anywhere on the link tree that
is linktree dot com, slash flags for cons all selled out.

Speaker 1 (01:09:02):
We do have merch.

Speaker 3 (01:09:04):
For you know, Christmas time stuff. We do have a
Patreon for bonus content that Max and I are about
to go into is in fact, and yeah, just a
bunch of fun links that were there anywhere with an
AD sign. We are at flagged for content like for
like the number. I think that's pretty much it. And man,

(01:09:30):
I have not been taken notes. I had a way
to close this podcast, but it was just in my mind.
I have no notes on it. So like Max, if
you want to take it away and close us out
of here, that'd be fantastic.

Speaker 4 (01:09:43):
Remember, every flag tell us a story, so make sure
yours is worth flying.

Speaker 1 (01:09:48):
Oh short and sweet, I love it.

Speaker 3 (01:09:52):
Thank you Max, thanks viewers, listeners, and we will catch
you all.

Speaker 1 (01:09:56):
On the fly side.

Speaker 6 (01:09:57):
Take care and thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:10:01):
Oh thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:10:10):
Flag for Content is proud to be sponsored by Flags
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