The flag you see above has been the official flag of Austin since 1915, when a guy by the name of Ray F. Coyle won the $50 grand prize for designing Austin's first city seal/flag. It's an image that Austinites have likely seen plastered on government property around town plenty of times, but most likely didn't dwell upon. (Or were never quite bored enough to consider.)
Recently, local graphic designer and flag enthusiast Michael Kriegshauser saw a TED Talk on municipal flag design, and pointed out that Austin's official flag violates more than a few modern flag design principles. Apparently there's a fine line between keeping it weird, and getting it wrong. From the story on KUT:
"It’s this tiny shield you can barely see on this giant white field," he says. “If you think of a flag as something that needs to be visible over a couple of miles, if we needed to alert someone at sea that we were a safe harbor, our flag wouldn’t do that right now."
In addition to being "visually offensive", our current flag features what appears to be the genie lamp from Aladdin. Obviously that doesn't quite represent what this city is all about. Also, we really need something that would be able to alert someone at sea that we were a safe harbor. Because you never know. Here's a look at his design:
A rendering of one proposed design for Austin's new municipal flag. COURTESY OF MIKE KRIEGSHAUSER
That's a nice flag, no doubt. (You can read Kriegshauser's detailed his thought process behind the design via this post at Medium.) But we were thinking something more like this:
A Tie-Dyed Taco. What's more Austin than that? Design by Dalizabeth Box Foseberry
Want to help us fix this flag situation? We are inviting our readers to submit their own design for the "unofficial" flag of Austin. What should it incorporate? Tacos? A guitar? Something BBQ related? Several thousand bats?
Here's your canvas. Do with it what you will.
We'll be taking submissions via Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The original prize for Austin's flag design was $50, so we'll be giving away a $50 gift card to the Alamo Drafthouse. Here are the submissions:
Submitted by Josh Lopez
Submitted by Michael Kriegshauser
Submitted by Eddie Allas
Submitted by John Cantu
Submitted by Karissa Rokovich
Submitted by Scotty MC Carlin
Submitted by Bob Ray
Submitted by Mikie Hipolito
Submitted by Mike McKinnon
(For more on this subject, visit KUT, Medium, Reddit, and the Statesman)
