Wednesday, 9 November 2016

The US flag might get 51 stars

Hi all I am pleased to be back blogging, I have finished the print publication I mentioned and it is currently being submitted to potential publishers, I will of course update the blog on progress.
The world has today been focused on the result of the American presidential election, but there was another significant referendum in the United States yesterday that went largely unnoticed. The capitol Washington DC voted in a referendum to become a state. Although this of course has to be approved by congress, which may or may not happen. Washington DC is not part of a state so has no representation in Congress. This video helps explain:
If this application for statehood is approved it would make Washington DC the 51st state of the United States of America. If American tradition is followed then a star would be added to the canton of the US flag. Since 1960 the US flag has had an even and symmetrical 50 stars which an extra star would mess up, so what patterns could be used? The Puerto Rico statehood movement use a circular design, which harks back to the Betsy Ross design of the early US flag, except it now forms a sphere.
 The problem with this is that some people don't think that there should be a star in the centre of the formation, as this would imply that some state or states are more important than others rather than equal.
There are two other drafts that have been suggested, one with a "checkerboard" pattern
Another draft has a hexagonal pattern:

 I personally think this looks odd but perhaps thats because I am so used to seeing a symmetrical canton.
I like the Puerto Rico design. I think it tries to go back to the modern US flag roots of the Betsy Ross flag, however I think they went about it wrong. The hollow circle of stars a symbol of unity the world over possibly inspired by early American flags, notably in the European and African Union Flags. So my idea reverts to the hollow circle. Of course 51 stars is too many to fit into a single circle, but I was inspired by a variant of the 34 star flag (1861-1863) that made use of two circles:
This is my design for a 51 star Betsy Ross style US flag:
It keeps a symmetrical pattern, and all the stars are equal. In order to accommodate all the stars I had to make them a bit smaller and expand the blue canton so it now touches 9th red stripe instead of the 8th white stripe. As the hollow circle is a symbol of unity which is what the USA is probably in need of now I think the change is worth it and I think it works rather well, at least until Puerto Rico or another territory becomes a state and we need a 52 star flag lol. 

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2 comments:

  1. Unknown10 November 2016 at 13:51

    I think the symbolism of the hollow circle would be good, but for me the enlarged canton just seems like too noticeable of an alteration. However, alterations like that would obliviously be necessary if 52 stars were needed, and as unlikely as it is - or at least I think so as of now, even though things seem to be happening that I thought were unlikely - there may even be need to remove stars from the flag. Some Californians are now bringing up the discussion of secession from the union; Cascadia has long been a theorized nation made up of Washington, Oregon, and portions of other US states and British Columbia; Vermont has always had an independence movement, so has Texas for that matter, and Alaskans have toyed with the idea as well. Again, as unlikely as all those states seceding would be, I'd say from there it wouldn't be long until the US broke up entirely, and it would probably do so regionally: roughly along the lines of the Northeast, South, Midwest, Far West, and West Coast. It would be interesting to see what flags would come out of that scenario.

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  2. Ali Raza Janjua9 May 2017 at 23:22

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