My Flag Design

Purpose, Meaning, Story

I believe all good design starts with the end in mind – what is it that you want to convey or create? In designing my flag I started with my purpose statement which is: to create new worlds.

This fits at several levels:

Self: Each of us create our own reality or world in which we live. One of my big drivers is learning and ‘shifting my world’ is a neat way of describing how we learn.

Others: When I work with others, for instance as a business coach, my goal is to ‘shift their world’ and the best way to do this is to ‘create a new world’ or a new view of who they can become and the action they can take.

Organisations: The same applies to groups of people – shift their world by creating a new vision or reality.

Planet Earth: Creating a better world in which we live is the ultimate expression of this idea.

So, this is the meaning, story and purpose I wanted to display.

Simple Symbols

The next step is to translate your concept into a visual symbol. And, for me the natural symbol was planet earth and the concept of the ‘blue planet’. When the early astronauts flew out into the atmosphere and looked back at our home, they noticed this blue marble, which reflected the fact, that 71% of our planet is covered by water. This became the visual metaphor that I could now use.

Image of Planet Earth: Wikipedia

Existing Flags

This formed a neat match with one of my favourite flags: the flag of Japan. I love the simplicity of their flag as a simple red circle on a field of white. The red circle represents the sun, which fits given that Japan has traditionally been known as ‘the land of the rising sun’.

So, instead of a red circle I could use a blue one.

[Tweet “My new flag design – inspired by @romanmars on TED #businessflags”]

An Update

I could have stopped there. A blue circle on a white background would have been a great result. I wanted to go step further. For me it wasn’t about ‘one world’, it was about ‘changing worlds’. So, how do you represent this? The thought of two overlapping worlds fitted neatly. Thus the finished design of two overlapping circles of slightly different blue hues and a third space in between which adds to the story about how change occurs.