#2 Red White & Blue

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#2 Red White & Blue
Click image to view full size or download poster for gallery-​quality printing & framing.
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Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

If you wish to comment (and I hope you do) please comment here.

Flag Day’s 100th Anniversary

American-Flag-Waving large free

June 14, 2016 cel­e­brates the 100th Anniver­sary of Flag Day (Unit­ed States), which was estab­lished by Pres­i­dent Woodrow Wil­son in 1916. Flag Day com­mem­o­rates the adop­tion of the flag of the Unit­ed States, which occurred June 14th, 1777 by res­o­lu­tion of the Sec­ond Con­ti­nen­tal Congress.

Red White & Blue is the sec­ond Amper­Art piece I cre­at­ed, way back in 2011. I don’t know if it was influ­enced by Flag Day or the 4th of July. I don’t even recall the con­cept behind the art­work (was the amper­sand sup­posed to resem­ble a char­ac­ter from an old parch­ment doc­u­ment?). Regard­less, I recent­ly dis­cov­ered it was nev­er offi­cial­ly released. So here is Amper­Art #2, Red White & Blue — final­ly unveiled on the 100th anniver­sary of Flag Day.

Clever concept, clashing colors

I have sev­er­al opin­ions about the design of the Amer­i­can flag — from a con­cep­tu­al stand­point, to a col­or stand­point, to a brand­ing stand­point. In order to get this “lost art” pub­lished today, Flag Day, I’ll save those com­ments for lat­er, & will add them to this arti­cle right here (& let you know when that hap­pens, if you sub­scribe to Amper​Art​.com).

But one thing I must state now, because it is fas­ci­nat­ing to me as a design­er, is the dynam­ic nature of the flag’s design, evolv­ing as the nation grows; & how clev­er­ly the stars have been (near­ly impos­si­bly) arranged to accom­mo­date the ever-​increasing num­ber of states. I applaud the clev­er­ness of each iter­a­tion. (I won­der if Bet­sy planned on that.)

38_stars2Here is a com­plete chart of the flag’s iter­a­tions. Quite inter­est­ing are the 1837 “Great Star Flag,” the star con­fig­u­ra­tions for the years 1847, 1877, & the 1890 43-​star flag which must have caused the design­er to pull out some hair. The next year, 44 stars, was most cer­tain­ly a wel­come sim­ple challenge.

Plan­ning for the future, you can also see the 51-​star flag if a new state is added (hmm…who would that be? Could there be a par­cel of land some­where in the shape of an ampersand?)


PLEDGE of ALLEGIANCE

I pledge alle­giance to the flag of the 
Unit­ed States of America 
and to the Repub­lic for which it stands, 
one Nation under God, indivisible, 
with lib­er­ty and jus­tice for all.

The Pledge of Alle­giance, writ­ten by Fran­cis Bel­lamy, a bap­tist min­is­ter,  was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in The Youth’s Com­pan­ion on Sep­tem­ber 8, 1892. In its orig­i­nal form it read:

I pledge alle­giance to my Flag 
and the Repub­lic for which it stands, 
one nation, indivisible, 
with lib­er­ty and jus­tice for all.

Note there is no ref­er­ence to Amer­i­ca nor to God. Bel­lamy antic­i­pat­ed that the pledge would be used by any coun­try, not just the Unit­ed States.

In 1923 – 24 “my flag” was changed to “the flag of the Unit­ed States” & in 1924 “of Amer­i­ca” was added (so immi­grant chil­dren would know which flag they were saluting).

In 1942, the pledge’s 50th anniver­sary, Con­gress adopt­ed it as part of a nation­al flag code. Some state leg­is­la­tures required school stu­dents to recite the pledge. In 1943 that require­ment was dropped, as some reli­gious groups were not allowed to idol­ize a such a symbol.

On June 14, 1954, Pres­i­dent Dwight D. Eisen­how­er signed the bill approv­ing the words “under God.”

Bel­lamy went on to become an adver­tis­ing executive.

Read more about the Pledge of Alle­giance, includ­ing the debate over the words “under God,” at Smith​son​ian​.com, which pro­vid­ed the above his­tor­i­cal information.


If you wish to comment (and I hope you do) please comment here.

Flag Day is everyday (somewhere)

June 14 is Flag Day in Amer­i­ca. I’m sure all or most oth­er coun­tries have des­ig­nat­ed days to cel­e­brate their flags. Flags in gen­er­al are mean­ing­ful, col­or­ful, sym­bol­ic & fun. So here is a com­pi­la­tion of the world’s flags to enjoy as a piece of art in itself, also to give hope that we can all live in har­mo­ny someday:

Flags

If you wish to comment (and I hope you do) please comment here.


chaz sez ...

Check out the new “chaz sez” blog at Des​i​moneDesign​.com, my com­mer­cial graph­ic design web­site. It’s most­ly about design, typog­ra­phy, print­ing, pub­lish­ing & mar­ket­ing, but on occa­sion I’ll divert to a side­ways top­ic that just can’t escape my rant­i­ng & raving.


Production notes for #2 Red White & Blue:
Original size: 10x15 inches

Program: Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop
Font: unknown
Ampersand: Custom design by Chaz DeSimone
Credits: 
Flag against sky: stock
38-​star flag: UShis​to​ry​.org
Flags of the world: GraphicStock
You may repost the image. Please credit Amper​Art​.com.
To download a full-​size high-​resolution 11x17-​inch poster, click on the image.

For pro­fes­sion­al graph­ic design, please vis­it Des­i­mone Design.

Desimone? Damn good!