The KC City Flag

KC topics that don't fit anywhere else.
herrfrank
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Re: The KC City Flag

Post by herrfrank »

I vote to return to the 1970s KC flag (without the wording added in the 1980s).
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Re: The KC City Flag

Post by smh »

bobbyhawks wrote:
smh wrote:I realize this is a thread about the KC flag, but perhaps it is time for our resident vexillologists to turn their attention to a larger purpose. Imagine if Missouri could have a flag as recognizable and iconic as Colorado, California, New Mexico, or Texas.

House Committee considering creating commission to study whether we need a new flag: http://www.kansascity.com/2014/02/05/47 ... -flag.html
I'm a native Kansan, so the flag means more to me, but I've always thought the Kansas flag was quite nice and that the Missouri flag was quite forgettable. The Missouri flag is two bears high-fiving on top of the Paraguay/Netherlands flag.
I like that Kansas's is simpler, I dislike that it says KANSAS on it. I would make the same complaint about California's except that it says California Republic--which is awesome.
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WinchesterMysteryHouse
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Re: The KC City Flag

Post by WinchesterMysteryHouse »

What? The KS state flag has KANSAS printed on it in big, stupid sans serif letters. It sucks.
Missouri flag, its better.

Official.
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Eon Blue
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Re: The KC City Flag

Post by Eon Blue »

How about something with two large blue fields on each side and red in the middle. The blue fields would be proportional to the percentage of economic activity in the state generated by KC and STL to remind the red outstaters where their bread is buttered. 8)

Keep the high-fiving bears, they're still cool.
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Re: The KC City Flag

Post by KCMax »

MO is considering making the "high-five" the official state gesture. That is not a joke. So the high-fivin' bears seems appropriate, nay, essential.
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Re: The KC City Flag

Post by bobbyhawks »

WinchesterMysteryHouse wrote:What? The KS state flag has KANSAS printed on it in big, stupid sans serif letters. It sucks.
Missouri flag, its better.

Official.
I still like the Kansas flag way better. Also, I'm guessing that very few people outside of Missouri can recognize the Missouri flag.
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Re: The KC City Flag

Post by HalcyonKC »

I watched this TED Talk this morning and it reminded me of this forum's discussion about the KC flag.

https://www.ted.com/talks/roman_mars_wh ... anguage=en

Mayor Sly James recently remarked about people around the country starting to wear shirts with various KC logos as a sign of the city's turnaround. If our flag was as "bad ass" as the speaker cites Amsterdam's being, I could see that adding momentum to that trend. A handful of people might actually want to display it on a home or local business simply because it looked cool, and things would evolve from there. Instead, our flag just looks like it was designed to be displayed at the top of city stationery and mailings with the flag itself as a weak afterthought, and the only place I ever see it is on the side of an occasional city truck.
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Re: The KC City Flag

Post by UrbanKC »

I watched that TED Talk a couple weeks ago too!

I think a flag design that is simple, and takes inspiration from Sporting KC's Jersey a few years ago would be great:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/7 ... L1500_.jpg

For those who didn't know, it's the border of KS & MO, with the logo on the location of KC.

I would like us to stay away from fountain-inspired designs because I don't really think it is that "inspirational". Although we are called the city of fountains, it isn't that important or critical, and it's not at all important to people from Kansas City.

Same for monikers like "Paris of the Plains" etc...

Flags need to be important to the people actually living in the place. It needs to be cool to identify with it and to fly.

Even better idea than the Sporting KC one is to take the KC Monarchs logo and use it as the primary or sole element on the flag:
http://www.underconsideration.com/brand ... detail.png

If you cannot get the city government to bite immediately, come up with a great design, get local clothing & flag companies to print it and start flying it, wearing it and giving it to your friends. The KC Monarch logo is already being used on clothing. If we keep it simple, by blowing it up in size, and pretty much keeping the background one color, it could work well.
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Re: The KC City Flag

Post by mykn »

UrbanKC wrote:I watched that TED Talk a couple weeks ago too!

I think a flag design that is simple, and takes inspiration from Sporting KC's Jersey a few years ago would be great:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/7 ... L1500_.jpg

For those who didn't know, it's the border of KS & MO, with the logo on the location of KC.

I would like us to stay away from fountain-inspired designs because I don't really think it is that "inspirational". Although we are called the city of fountains, it isn't that important or critical, and it's not at all important to people from Kansas City.

Same for monikers like "Paris of the Plains" etc...

Flags need to be important to the people actually living in the place. It needs to be cool to identify with it and to fly.

Even better idea than the Sporting KC one is to take the KC Monarchs logo and use it as the primary or sole element on the flag:
http://www.underconsideration.com/brand ... detail.png

If you cannot get the city government to bite immediately, come up with a great design, get local clothing & flag companies to print it and start flying it, wearing it and giving it to your friends. The KC Monarch logo is already being used on clothing. If we keep it simple, by blowing it up in size, and pretty much keeping the background one color, it could work well.
I think your right, we need to get away from "complex" designs and simplify to something that people relate to.

If it were up to me it would be a blue flag with K C on it. I imagine the Charlie Hustle Heart KC logo without the heart. People seem to love the design based on everyone and their dog having a shirt.
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Re: The KC City Flag

Post by pash »

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Last edited by pash on Tue Feb 14, 2017 4:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The KC City Flag

Post by UrbanKC »

pash wrote:
UrbanKC wrote:Even better idea than the Sporting KC one is to take the KC Monarchs logo and use it as the primary or sole element on the flag:
http://www.underconsideration.com/brand ... detail.png
That's not a Monarchs logo, it's the city's newish official logo, since 2013. I didn't like that logo when they unveiled it, and I still don't. It looks exactly like what it is: a web-font botch-job of a classic Monarchs or A's logo.
mykn wrote:If it were up to me it would be a blue flag with K C on it. I imagine the Charlie Hustle Heart KC logo without the heart.
The design on the Charlie Hustle shirts comes from a patch the 1942 Monarchs wore on sleeve of their jerseys:

Image

That would have been my choice for a city logo or flag.
I have a Monarch's hat signed by Buck O'Neil and it has the new KC logo:
http://www.strictlyfitteds.com/sites/de ... k=ufv17dh-

It might have been a later version of the Monarch's cap. Because that's also the version the Royals have worn in recent years when they wear the Monarchs jerseys.

We have so many good monogram versions to choose from:

ImageImage
Image
Image

_________________________________________

The colors on the semi-official logo are pretty bad. But I think overall it works well. Though I am partial to the Chiefs/Royals style of having the C to the lower right.
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Re: The KC City Flag

Post by pash »

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Last edited by pash on Tue Feb 14, 2017 4:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
chingon
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Re: The KC City Flag

Post by chingon »

pash wrote: It's not a Monarchs logo, just very similar. It was created by a local design agency in 2013. The "C" is rounder than the "C" of classic logos, and the serifs are different. The letters interlock in a way that the Monarchs logos never did.

To me it's very "uncanny valley"—it's so similar to a classic design that it's hard to say how it's different, yet the subtle differences somehow make it very obvious that you are not looking at a classic design.
I'm a fan, sounds like for the exact reason you dislike it, but I'm 99% certain it is not a "web font", but rather a font (and interlocking pattern) that was used on brass castings all throughout City Hall when it was constructed in the 30s. There's an interlocked CH on the brass door handle plates and a couple other spots that they cribbed it from.

I dislike the fountain/heart design on the flag, but I guess I would find it considerable less objectionable if the flag did not have the "Heart of the Nation" "City of Fountains" scripts, and I'd just as soon they jettisoned that tri-color too. Either way, I'd take the interlocked KC on a plain field over what we have now, which objectively sucks.
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Re: The KC City Flag

Post by chingon »

I still haven't let this obsession go. Browsing reddit the other day I came across these

https://m.imgur.com/a/6fo0S#cVLjREF

https://m.imgur.com/a/0at5a

Image

Image

https://m.imgur.com/a/lTRKG


And Am kind of half thinking about circulating a petition to at least remove the "City of Fountains/Heart of the Nation/Kansas City, Missouri" textfrom our flag, which would immediately make it 300 times better.
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Re: The KC City Flag

Post by aknowledgeableperson »

There was a segment of the CBS Sunday Morning news program about flags, especially city ones.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/some-not-so ... old-flags/
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Re: The KC City Flag

Post by HalcyonKC »

Wichita's city flag has enough design mojo that there's a movement afoot to make it available as a personalized license plate.

http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-gov ... 64901.html

I'm not sure if Missouri allows such a thing, and even if they did, the current KC flag blows and probably wouldn't lend itself very well to a sharp and distinctive plate design.
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Re: The KC City Flag

Post by KCPowercat »

I was just thinking about this again the other day. With the current wave of KC pride, I think this would be a worthwhile endeavor to recreate the flag and make it something people are proud to adorn ....also Chicago city flag.
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rxlexi
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Re: The KC City Flag

Post by rxlexi »

I was just thinking about this again the other day. With the current wave of KC pride, I think this would be a worthwhile endeavor to recreate the flag and make it something people are proud to adorn ....also Chicago city flag.
I agree. This really needs to happen, and now is the right time, especially as the city has successfully completed it's "rebranding" including the new KC logo.

Even using said new city logo on a white background would be significantly better than the current flag.
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Re: The KC City Flag

Post by Riverite »

I actually like the fountain design I agree the words on it look stupid though
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Re: The KC City Flag

Post by KCPowercat »

The fountain symbol doesn't have to go away completely.
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