Sheffield Needs A New Flag

[SheffieldForum]

A city flag is part of a city's identity and a good city flag can be found everywhere - from flying around city properties to being sold on items in gift shops to representing the city on produce. It creates symbolism to get behind and promotes civic pride.

 

As Ted Kaye from the North American Vexillological Association says: "Often when city leaders say we have more important things to do than worry about than a city flag, my response is that if you had a great city flag you would have a banner for people to rally under to face those more important things."

 

Or, as Roman Mars says in the below video: "The marriage of good design and civic pride is something that we need in all places. The best part about municipal flags is that we own them. They are an open-source, publicly owned design language of the community. When they are done well, they are remixable, adaptable, and they are powerful."

 

Here's a video feature both of those quotes, which is a very well put together TED Talk on the subject and sets the context for the conversation:

 

 

So - we should have a Sheffield city flag for people to get behind and use.

 

Historically we have had the coat of arms on a flag ("seal on a bedsheet"), or the Yorkshire Rose (which is great, but isn't specific to Sheffield). There was, for a while, a flag for South Yorkshire which had a wavy pattern and an 'S' and 'Y' under a Yorkshire rose, but again - it isn't specific to Sheffield. The latest guidance in Sheffield for flying flags is to fly the Union Flag for almost all of the time, which is great in itself also but just isn't... Sheffield.

 

Therefore, I think we should look to create a flag for Sheffield. We should look at other awesome city designs and best practice (Amsterdam and Chicago in the above video are great examples) and have something simple and easily replicable that would represent the city. Something we could all openly use and get behind.

 

The rules for good flag design are generally considered to be:

 

1. Keep it simple - a flag should be so simple that a child can draw it from memory

2. Use meaningful symbolism

3. Use two to three basic colours - from the standard colour set: red, white, blue, green yellow and black

4. No lettering, seals or coat of arms - never use writing of any kind

5. Be distinctive and easy to make out from a distance

 

There have been some unofficial attempts in the past - here's a couple I found online:

 

(TMcB23/Wikimedia)

 

Good start, but maybe too busy and complex in parts of the design?

 

And here's another one that is a little bit more modern (but again probably too complex):

 

(Mourning Starre / Reddit)

 

So - what do you think? Should we start a campaign to create an open source, usable, distinct, beautiful and simple civic flag for Sheffield?

[Draggletail]

Maybe a flag that somehow incorporates Hendos without the actual full branding?

[butlers]

Hasnt New Zealand altered there national flag a few years back 

Sports teams,well football,have had a recent trend for new club badges partly to copyright them.

 

 

[Mister M]

Isn't this Sheffield's flag incorporating it's coat of arms?:

 

Deo Adjuvante Labor Proficit' means "With God's help our labour is successful."

 

I like it.

Not sure about the modern. I like geometric designs, but that one looks a bit amateurish.

[RollingJ]

1 minute ago, Mister M said:

Isn't this Sheffield's flag incorporating it's coat of arms?:

 

Deo Adjuvante Labor Proficit' means "With God's help our labour is successful."

 

I like it.

Not sure about the modern. I like geometric designs, but that one looks a bit amateurish.

I agree with you. Personally - possibly because I'm old and grumpy 😄 - I  fail to see the need to 'modernise' everything.

[SheffieldForum]

17 minutes ago, Mister M said:

Isn't this Sheffield's flag incorporating it's coat of arms?:

 

Deo Adjuvante Labor Proficit' means "With God's help our labour is successful."

 

I like it.

Not sure about the modern. I like geometric designs, but that one looks a bit amateurish.

As per the rules above (and the video) - no seals or coats of arms (although you can use it as a design jumping off point) and no lettering allowed.

 

If you didn’t watch to video it is well worth a watch — really interesting and entertaining.

 

 

[Mister M]

I suppose this image from Sheffield High Street is out of the question then...

 

[Mister M]

On a more serious note, something like this meets the criteria outlined by the OP:

 

 

 

[HallamGirl]

I thought the Sheffield flag was a red star, red hammer, red sickle and red crescent on a red background... always seems that way after election time anyhow, 

[St Petre]

3 hours ago, Draggletail said:

Maybe a flag that somehow incorporates Hendos without the actual full branding?

There was, is and always will be more to Sheffield than Hendo's!