Are we making a brand, logo or a flag?
(John's column wasn't published by a major newspaper in time for the Flag Consideration Panel's 1 September decision of four flag designs that will be voted on in the first referendum.)
When I saw the forty flag designs released last Monday my first thought was, let’s not change it unless we have something better to replace it with.
As a creative director, I have worked throughout the world on global brands like Coca-Cola, Levi’s and Apple, not to forget our own international airline and Tourism NZ.
I have been on many international juries for creative awards and I can imagine how the Flag Consideration Panel interacted. Nonetheless, their role was not to pick a winner but rather choose a suitable variety of flags, share them, and develop (yes, they can redesign the entries) four designs that could be the next national flag.
From a creative viewpoint, none of the 40 designs leap out and say, “I’m it.” Most of them seem to have symbols that have no connection to nationhood or what other countries would recognize as uniquely us.
There are flags here with multiple symbols, which shatter some basic simple rules of good design.
The only internationally recognized emblem that has been with us through history is the silver fern. When properly drawn, it is fresh, elegant, and engaging. It is 100 percent New Zealand.
It’s odd then that not one design in the long-list contains a silver fern design that is of a suitable depiction for a flag. What we have instead are what I would call brands and logos. Symbols that would look more in place on a litre of milk or the tail of a domestic aeroplane.
There is a different set of rules when it comes to designing a flag. Emblems for a flag should not touch the edges. They should be framed by the field (background). Only patterns, such as pales (like France and Italy), crosses (like the Union Jack and Scandinavian flags) and y-fronts (like South Africa) should touch the edges.
Only two designs in the long-list meet this criteria.
Considering that many sports teams, trade organisations, military and civil service emblems use the silver fern, any new national flag’s silver fern needs to be compatible. In other words, it must not introduce new elements that confuse what a silver fern looks like.
I think of the national flag as being at the top of the family tree. Every existing silver fern emblem/logo/brand has to look like a descendant of what appears on the national flag.
This is where the ferns in the long-list fail. Most of them are the New Zealand Way Limited’s registered trademark, which is licenced to multiple businesses and government bodies across all classes. That design is an evolved design – the great grandchild of silver fern designs. It contains too many unique elements and departures from the fundamentals of a silver fern.
I know of a family that has prints of Joseph Banks’ botanical drawings from his 1769 visit to New Zealand with Captain Cook. Banks liked that the silver fern had three proportionate levels of division, (pinnates), each with staggered symmetry and a consistently reducing scale along each blade. Each leaflet (pinna) tilted towards the light, revealing its silver underlining.
During the 1800s, a pressed silver fern was a much sought after item for any botanist collector.
The most sought after unique element of any brand is having dominance over a colour. A colour that instantly identifies with a product or country is a rarity.
The Netherlands own orange. New Zealand owns black. There is no other way you can put it. We have black to ourselves and we have done a brilliant job capitalising on it.
We are blessed that our forefathers had the foresight to secure such an iconic and respected colour.
Adding other colours to the mix can diminish a brand and create confusion. The only reason for adding a colour should be to accentuate the core colour. Adding contrast through framing or balancing the amount of a second colour are two ways of achieving this.
Take a look at the Canadian flag’s use of those colours. If New Zealand were to include a silver fern on its flag, it should take centre stage and capitalise on the contrast with the national colour to make it stand out. To accentuate the central emblem on a rectangular flag, I would recommend flanking the emblem with white pales in the same way the red stripes on the Canadian flag complements the red maple leaf.
The only flag design I’ve seen that seems to pay heed to any of this didn’t even make the long list. John Ansell’s “Black & Silver” fern design is the most remarkably researched and designed flag I have seen. It is the most fundamentally correct of all silver fern designs and in is in my opinion, so us.
According to the Flag Consideration Panel’s website, “The Panel and the Crown each reserve the right to consider other flag designs suggested before, during or after the Suggestion Period.” The panel has failed to articulate this to the media, who has instead run a popularity contest and shut out any designs that could still contribute to the process.
I would recommend that they either reconsider the “Black & Silver” as part of their long-list or make it one of the final four for the vote.
-John McCabe. Former senior creative director for Saatchi & Saatchi worldwide, founder of Fahrenheit212 New York and now head of One Winged Bee Productions.