Columbus iconography

[hivner1]

After reading a piece by the Urbanophile about Chicago’s flag, I had to look ours up. Blech! Red and yellow stripes remind me of mustard and ketchup (maybe this has subconsciously affected our recent hot dog surge…), with the city seal in the middle, which is hilariously busy.

With all this talk about branding Columbus, i am of the mindset that less is more. Little efforts like improving our flag (that I’ve never even seen before), less sales pitches, less worry about whether we will be noticed or not, more focus on improving our internal rebranding and letting it speak for itself.

Or, is this irrelevant?

Columbus

Chicago

[Josh Lapp]

Has been discussed:
https://www.columbusunderground.com/forums/topic/columbus-needs-a-new-city-flag

But having said that supposedly the Flag Lady was going to sponsor a contest for a new flag, but that never materialized.

[hivner1]

rats, well… i should’ve did my thread research. ah well…

[hivner1]

I dont think people are really motivated by a contest that is sponsored by The Flag Lady, no offense. It would have to be a contest endorsed by the city with real incentives. First though, the case would probably have to be made to them about exactly what is wrong with the flag and how it could serve as an important piece of branding.

[byJody]

For the Columbus 200, it would be fun to have a Flag Design Contest. Also I hope we can do a 200th T-shirt submission; In fact all the designs could be submitted to skreened.com and a purchase = vote.

[johnwirtz]

byJody wrote >>
For the Columbus 200, it would be fun to have a Flag Design Contest. Also I hope we can do a 200th T-shirt submission; In fact all the designs could be submitted to skreened.com and a purchase = vote.

Fun idea. I did one:
http://skreened.com/614/columbus-proposed-city-flag-t-shirt

[Brant]

John, sorry if you’ve already explained this, but why did you change your flag design from red & yellow to red & gray? Buckeyes?

[johnwirtz]

Brant wrote >>
John, sorry if you’ve already explained this, but why did you change your flag design from red & yellow to red & gray? Buckeyes?

I talked a little about that here, but basically the answer is yes. I don’t know why the current flag is yellow and red, but I suspect it has something to do with the Spanish flag (i.e., Christopher Columbus’ voyage was financed by Spain).

I think OSU has more to do with Columbus than Spain, so I changed it. I know a lot of people feel like Columbus has too much scarlet and gray already, but I think Ohio State is probably what Columbus is known for the best nationally and it is certainly one of the most important regional assets, if not the most important. We should embrace the scarlet and gray, not try to separate ourselves from it.

[Author]

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