What flag would best represent Victoria? A giant marijuana leaf against a backdrop of tents nestled in Beacon Hill Park?
How about a silhouette of the Johnson Street Bridge ringed by buckets of cash?
Probably not, but a member of Victoria’s youth council hopes to see Victoria ditch what currently passes for the city’s flag — its corporate logo — for a real flag, one that you will be invited to design.
Inspired by a TED talk on flags and reasoning that Victoria should have a flag that says Victoria in the same way the Canadian flag says Canada, Callum McDonald, 18, has hooked up with Studio Robazzo and launched a campaign that might petition city council to hold a flag competition.
McDonald, a flag collector who has always been interested in symbolism and heraldry, notes the city’s current flag isn’t a flag at all but more of a corporate logo — a blue wave over the words “The City of Victoria” against a white background.
A proper flag should not only represent its people to the world, but its design should engage citizens, he said. “Imagine if Canada’s flag said: ‘The State of Canada’ or if the United Kingdom [flag] said: ‘The United Kingdom’ in an old English font. It wouldn’t be very effective,” he said.
“So the [city’s] coat of arms could stay on as the city banner, and the new flag would fly in all the locations where the current logo is, which is about five.”
The current city flag meets none of the design principles outlined by the North American Vexillological Association (vexillology is the study of flags):
• It cannot be seen from afar.
• It isn’t meaningful.
• It contains text.
• It isn’t original.
Under the proposed rules for the online competition, the new flag would have to meet NAVA design rules and contain at least one element of design from Victoria’s coat of arms.
McDonald doesn’t plan to present his petition to city council until November. He launched the campaign in the hope of creating a buzz about the project and to get people thinking about designs.
“What we’re trying to instil in people is we can do better right now,” he said.
The Flag for Victoria campaign, in co-operation with Studio Robazzo, will host a forum on flag design Sept. 17 and the possibility of a flag competition. The group is interested in people contacting them with ideas about a city-wide flag contest.
Coun. Jeremy Loveday, council’s liaison to the youth council, said McDonald’s enthusiasm for the idea is contagious.
“I’m really excited about how passionate he is about the idea, and I’ve seen a lot of people’s faces light up when he talks to them about it,” Loveday said.
“I think he’s got a good point that our flag is essentially a logo, and perhaps it is time to have the people design a new flag.”
Mayor Lisa Helps called the idea “cool.”
“I agree with their assessment that a flying logo 50 feet in the air is not a flag,” Helps said. “I think this citizen-led initiative could bring us something very interesting.”
And if people vote for a marijuana leaf?
“From a democratic point of view, that’s fine, but at the end of the day the city has to say: ‘Oh yeah, sure.’ So they would probably say no,” McDonald said.
For more information, go to flagforvictoria.ca.
