One hundred years ago, in 1915, the city of Austin held a flag design contest with a grand prize of $50. A committee evaluated dozens of entries and ultimately settled on a heraldic shield designed by Ray F. Coyle.¹ Unfortunately, it’s not a well-designed flag (you can see it below). The shield works fine as the official seal of the city on stationery, but it has a lot of extra details that render it unfit for a medium that’s to be seen from far away, blowing in the wind. The capital of Texas should have a simple, bold, and memorable flag—something worthy of being flown alongside the flags of Texas and the United States.

To simplify the current flag design, I decided to home in on the blue chevron and the red and white stripes from the shield. These elements are clearly the heart of the design and already fit in with the state and national flag. The oil lamp, though, while interesting, needed to be replaced by a star. Even Coyle’s original design had a star before the committee recommended the lamp instead to represent education.¹ The star is a stronger symbol and almost obligatory for the capital of the Lone Star State.

The decorative elements—such as the capitol building silhouette, the wings, and the Christian cross—needed to be removed. The cross in particular has already caused a lawsuit against the city for endorsing a religion, violating the U.S. Constitution.¹ All of these elements are unnecessary because they cause clutter that can’t even be made out from a distance. Finally, “City of Austin” shouldn’t be written out on the flag for the same reason that the Texas flag shouldn’t have “State of Texas” written out. The design needs to be compelling enough to develop recognition without labels.

Vexillology is the study of flags and NAVA is the North American Vexillological Association. According to NAVA, there are 5 basic principles of good flag design.²

As you can see, the proposed flag upholds all of these principles. It’s simple because it takes only the core elements from the original design and lets them fill the entire space, rather than sitting as a seal in the middle of a white background with text. It’s meaningful because it uses established symbolism from American and Texan history. The star represents independence and is seen on both the United States flag and the Texas state flag. Gold is omitted from the proposal to reduce the flag to only 3 colors: red, white, and blue (which represent bravery, purity, and loyalty, respectively). With a simpler form and color scheme, the proposed flag is able to tie into its historical roots while sporting a fresh and unique design.

To conclude, this proposal stays true to the original vision of Ray F. Coyle but focuses on the main idea rather than the details. It takes the concept of the current flag but sets it in a style that’s a whole lot more flag-like. It’s a design that is simple so that it can be identified from a distance, bold so that it can stand out from other flags, and memorable so that it can—hopefully—become a recognized symbol of Austin, Texas.

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For more information about flags and flag design:

• TED: Roman Mars, Why city flags may be the worst-designed thing you’ve never noticed
• NAVA: North American Vexillological Association
• Wikipedia: Vexillology

¹ John M. Purcell, James A. Croft, Richard Monahan, American City Flags: 150 Flags from Akron to Yonkers (Trenton, NJ: North American Vexillological Association, 2003)

² Ted Kaye, Good Flag, Bad Flag: How to Design a Great Flag (Trenton, NJ: North American Vexillological Association, 2006)