Minnesota Changed its Flag

I still have (but haven't posted to) a Flag and Logo blog, mainly because I was fascinated/obsessed with, eh, flags and logos.

I once planned out a five-part comic miniseries about the politics of a specific land, breaking up the land into four provinces, each had their own flag, and I had designed all four flags. You may not have known it, but I was able to do it without the Good Flag, Bad Flag book, and I would argue they were each pretty good. 

Anyway, the other day I came across the following flag, labeled as Minnesota's state flag:

What? I've never seen that flag before, but I definitely like it. I thought...I thought the flag of Minnesota was...different.

So, one issue that the GF/BF text discusses is the proliferation of banal sameness in the state flag game, a whole slew of impossible to read official seals on navy-blue fields. I made a graphic below using small versions just to fit them all in and show off the boring similarity:

The bottom row are the seals on different color fields, as well as the seal on the bison with the red frame. Also, in the sea of blue-and-state-seals, you get the obverse of a flag (do you know which one?) as well as Minnesota's old state flag. Can you even tell? Can anybody? Some of the flags have the names of the states themselves on them---twice in the case of South Dakota---which breaks one of the GF/BF rules.

Back in 2024, the new flag for Minnesota was adopted and put into place. There are initiatives to change the flags of Illinois and Massachusetts on the docket, and possibly one other. But...Minnesota.

This flag is pretty damn cool. It's unique, simple, clear and easy to read visually from distance, can be drawn by a kid from memory, uses no words, has two colors that are related to the area (rivers/lakes/sky), the single star (for the 'North'), the star reflecting the star in the rotunda in their state capitol building, and which many Minnesotans think looks like four M's glued together. Another key thing in good flag design is how it appears hanging vertically: does it visually hold up? Is it still easy to read?

Yes to all of them. 

Anyway, I'm a nerd. But Minnesota has a cool new flag.