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Region: Forest

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The Pacific Alpine Commonwealth of Mount Seymour

Terrabod wrote:I agree that our current design is iconic and that the best designs will run with that, but I don't think it's fair to limit the creativity of the entrants where your creativity when designing the current flag was not. Besides, I'm of the opinion that the flag of our region should be determined by what the people of Forest want, instead of what the people of Forest want being restricted by the existing flag of our region. I expect our residents will vote for a design that reimagines our existing iconography in a way that's both new and familiar - but I guess that's for the voters to decide!

While I really do appreciate your commitment to complete freedom, my past experience with conducting flag redesigns and redesign contests suggests that it is extremely important to include some sort of quality/consistency check -- whether through a (proactive) set of design guidelines for entrants to follow, or through a (reactive) narrowing-down selection process by a group of well-informed government members. This check ensures that whatever designs are eventually voted on by the population as a whole not only have the most obvious symbolism (the sole criterion on which large populations tend to judge designs), but are also in line with basic graphic design principles and don't cause issues when used alongside the rest of the region's graphics.

I did not mean at all that any update should be limited by what the current flag is; rather, I said I hope that a process is put in place to ensure that a new design "retains the same connection to the rest of our graphic identity". Let me give you an example of what I mean by this. As long as I can remember, the "Forest shade of green" -- that dark-ish green color that you find on the WFE, in every dispatch header, etc. etc. etc., has been the green located at hex code #096309 (red 9, green 99, blue 9 in RGB). This is the color that is used everywhere to represent Forest, and in fact the current flag's green is indeed #096309. Now, if we don't tell entrants that as a rule they should use #096309 green in their design, we may end up with flags that have #00ff00 green or #09633b green or #3a6b27 green. All of those are perfectly respectable greens, but you can't deny it would be a headache (at least for those of us who make Forest graphics) to have everything one unified color... and then a single slightly different shade in the flag. The discrepancy would be nobody's fault, of course. And if we worked with the entrant to adjust the design to use the right color, or gave them the guideline beforehand, a version with #096309 green would surely look almost exactly the same and be just as good. But simply saying "let's put everyone's designs freely into a poll and let the best ones win!" eliminates the prospect of having any sort of consistency check like that.

Terrabod wrote:I'm told the last time we had a flag contest there were only three or four options, so I hope we see much more engagement from the community this time.

I'm pretty sure whoever told you that is wrong! I recall several pages' worth of designs submitted on the old forums (sadly lost to the mists of history). I know I myself submitted at least three, and Bruination also submitted a whole bunch. There were quite a few other designers and submissions as well.

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