Oolite Bulletins

I'm usually derisory of new flag proposals, but this one I like:



This one's not too bad, either:



Oh, here ya go, learn some astronomy, too:

Agreed.. I particularly like the first one.

Well, design wise, it never was a good decision to place a partially blue flag on a blue background...

Kinda like the third one...........

Nothing to do with me of course as I'm a Brit, but I don't really like either of them.
The first one is a slightly better design to my mind, but other than the stylised Boomerang there is nothing there that says 'Australia' to me. Also I tend to associate green and yellow with African national flags in particular.
The Kiwis are also pondering a new flag I notice, and many of the designs put forward there also seem a bit devoid of meaning, although the Fern motif seems to be popular.
Both incorporate the Southern Cross, which is fair enough, but I think any national flag should be distinctive and instantly recognisable, and where possible should graphically link to the nation - is a kangaroo silhouette too tacky?
Also, it should be simple - one great way to keep kids patriotic is to have a flag they can draw easily.
Final point - should either the Australian or New Zealand flags retain the Union Flag? Well, it's always been there, but of course it is up to you folks who live there really. I for one won't feel offended if it is removed, but I do feel this act might diminish the links and connections between our countries.

Edited to add:- I know Australian national sports teams have yellow and green colours, by the way - I'm just talking about flags.

Smivs wrote:

Both incorporate the Southern Cross, which is fair enough, but I think any national flag should be distinctive and instantly recognisable, and where possible should graphically link to the nation [...]

The trick here is to have a flag first, and it then becomes graphically associated with the nation. The Stars and Stripes are automatically linked in peoples' minds with the USA, but America doesn't have to be famous for stars or stripy things. (I've seen this in logo designs: everyone wants a logo that "symbolises what they do", and then everyone gets tied in knots trying to draw something that represents e.g. "recycling, waste management and secure shredding". What people should do is do what e.g. Penguin Books did: choose a picture, and then, by doing something well for many years, that picture will come to symbolise what the company does. A penguin is associated with literary fiction because that's what Penguin Books do, not the other way around.)

Smivs wrote:

is a kangaroo silhouette too tacky?

Perhaps if it was wearing a hat with corks dangling from it?

Nice to see the Indigenous Australians getting a patch of flag in these two designs, with the red and yellow and black, and the dots are a good touch.

Smivs wrote:

I tend to associate green and yellow with African national flags in particular... I know Australian national sports teams have yellow and green colours, by the way - I'm just talking about flags.

The yellow and green are a contentious subject among vexillologists and heraldry-oligists. They come from the golden wattles [fnord] behind the CoA arms; the official description of Australia's coat of arms makes no mention of the wattles [fnord], but the original drawing accompanying it includes them. Legend has it that the Illuminati got at King George, who personally intervened to get the Royal College of Heraldry-oligists to add the wattles [fnord]. No explanation for why the official drawing of the arms does not actually depict the official description of the arms has ever been forthcoming from either Canberra or Westminster. Spooky, huh?

OTOH, I read a web page the other day that claimed that ain't really the Southern Cross on the flag, but actually the Pleiades, because by the time of federation, the ET Pleiadeans had already displaced the Illuminati as secret rulers of Earth. I read that on the Internet, so it must be right.

I quite like the Northern Territory flag.



Generally though I can't see the point of changing flags or even having them at all.

I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/ ... omas_Paine

What about an Earth flag? Can't say I'm too struck with

but it does have some good features if I can remember what they are
explanatory http://wespenre.com/5/graphics-level-5/ ... 111614.jpg
larger version (the actual plaque) http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/212_fall200 ... plaque.jpg

Smivs wrote:

other than the stylised Boomerang there is nothing there that says 'Australia' to me.

There is nothing in the present flag that says 'Australia' either.. whereas the flag under discussion says 'Australia' quite clearly, as Disembodied points out:

Disembodied wrote:

Nice to see the Indigenous Australians getting a patch of flag in these two designs, with the red and yellow and black, and the dots are a good touch.

Smivs wrote:

one great way to keep kids patriotic is to have a flag they can draw easily

What the world is in desperate need of is less patriotism, not more..

Ambrose Bierce said it best..

Patriotism (n):
Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name. In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.

Zbond-Zbond wrote:

What about an Earth flag?

Well there is that pale blue design used by the United Nations.

Smivs wrote:

The Kiwis are also pondering a new flag I notice, and many of the designs put forward there also seem a bit devoid of meaning, although the Fern motif seems to be popular.

Yeah, the fourfive designs put up for the referendum aren't that inspiring for me, to be honest. I rather like the "Tiro Rangatira" flag design myself, but due to its current use by the Maori sovereignty movement it's probably got too much historical baggage

Smivs wrote:

Both incorporate the Southern Cross, which is fair enough, but I think any national flag should be distinctive and instantly recognisable, and where possible should graphically link to the nation...

It would be rather ironic if both the redesigned Australian and New Zealand flags would up with variants on the Southern Cross similar to the current flags!

It's normal in flag design for any animal depicted to face toward the hoist, but in this recently-tweeted amateur effort we see a kangaroo hopping away from the hoist symbolizing discord. Otherwise, it's a hark back to the "We need a new flag"-flag popular, and commercially available, in the 1980s.

We can explain away the backward kangaroo by claiming it is looking out, toward NZ, and note also that it appears to be a female with distended pouch. Oh, NZ, you know we are going to assimilate you sooner or later, why do you resist?

Wildeblood wrote:

Oh, NZ, you know we are going to assimilate you sooner or later, why do you resist?

Probably because, from what I've seen, NZ is busy trying to assimilate Queensland..

that..... lol

spot on dizzy.

latest rear windscreen sticker is

queeNZlander

and all those bloody ferns.... lol

Wildeblood wrote:

We can explain away the backward kangaroo by claiming it is looking out, toward NZ, and note also that it appears to be a female with distended pouch. Oh, NZ, you know we are going to assimilate you sooner or later, why do you resist?

Yeah, we've seen your West Islander assimilation propaganda... but we've got some counter-propaganda of our own