National flower concept
This idea originated from a design I produced for a poster brief last year which aimed to produce British weather, The illustrations of the flowers are formed in a similar style that can be found in english rugby union. The simplicity of the shapes allow a clear representation of each flower while trying to not be too complicated.
Due to the sake that the fewer colours featured on the flag, the better, it would be beneficial to use only 2 or three colours, therefore sticking with my original idea of using red and white as they are the common colours of the three countries.
The blue incorporated still makes the flag appear to have Scottish themes.
I tried a couple of varations incorporating the actual 'logo' that I produced for the first concept, this is a basic layout change just to cover the various options, however if I decide to follow these layouts I will more than likely replace the logo with the crown of the monarchy which would help combine the three flowers.
Below is the design i want to submit as one of my concepts, i have aimed to incorporated the crosses which are featured on each countries individual flag as well as. I then wanted to add the rings which were incorporated to visualise the connection between the 3 countries and their individual role in the Union.
Country Shapes
The next concept follows using the physical shape of the 3 countries, through experimenting with these shapes i thought it would be a good opportunity to link an additional message into the flag which not just represents the Union but also visualises the link between the UK and the Industrial revolution.
My aim was to take these shapes and present them in a way that both creates an obvious shape of the UK while also looking like a factory, which highlights the importance of the UK in the advancement of industry and technology.
i recieved the feedback from peers that the initial design actually looks quite like a gun, which is not an area which I even though about until some body mentioned it. Obviously this is not a visual message that i want to present.
By altering the shape of the original I think It now creates a more consistent representation of both the shape of the uk as well as the link to the industrial revolution.
As I am not 100% confident with the layout of the design I have produced, I have produced a few more options to give a little variety when presenting it in the crit.
My first concept is based around the 3 individual designs that are featured on each countries St. flags,
St. George
St. David
St. Patrick
My aim is to apply the rules of branding and logo design to represent Britain as a modern brand. By using the shapes of each individual st. flag it will allow me to form some sort of recognisable shape that hopefully still links to traditional Britain themes while also showing the modernisation and progress of the Union.
The colour scheme originally chosen for this concept is based around the 4 colours found on the St. Flags, Red, White, Yellow and Black. However when I was playing around with the physical layout of the flag, the colour scheme cause it to have quite a Nazi-esque outcome which is followed with some negative connotations as you can expect so this really wouldn't be a good option however below are some variations I have produced to get a brief idea of the kind of shapes I am aiming for.
Below are the 3 individual shapes that I would like to combine to create Britains new 'Logo' I think having a clean simplified design would be best to show Britain's link to traditional but also advancements in modernity as well as versatility of cultures.
I continued to experiment with the layout and colour scheme, as more red is used for the background it kind of takes away from the right wing style of visuals and instead reminds me of a Ferrari style of brand, which again isn't a British representation, so at this stage I believe most of the British feel of this flag will stem from the chosen colour scheme.
I eventually got to the stage below, where I have produced a combination of the 3 individual shapes that I feel represent the modernised yet traditional Britain that I was aiming to represent. By reducing the scale of the visual element and introducing the circular element i feel it completes the link between the 3 countries and shows precise, clear and straight forward future for Great Britain.
However I still don't feel 100% confident that a flag this simple would please every person of the UK but I feel it is un offensive and represents all elements of the UK equally.
To make the whole flag come together i felt that some visual form that clearly links all countries in the Union together. This is when I decided to try adding a visual element which represents the monarchy and royal family which is one of the most recognised features of Britain.
Just for the sake of variation I then created a few alternate options just in case the 'logo' created is not received as well as I hope when The Beautiful Meme come in on the 25th to crit.
Below are the 3 options for this concept that I will take to the crit, at the moment I feel this is my strongest visual concept, but i feel that what ever is produced there will always be some negative reactions as there is such a huge audience that any changes to the current flag would more than likely cause up roar.
This brief was set by the Studio Dr. ME , they came in and did a work shop with us and the aim of this brief is to simply produce a flag design with a partner that will be produced and exhibited in an exhibition in Manchester set up by Dr .ME in December.
I was coupled with Chris Shuttleworth and as we had to produce the entire design in 4 hours we made sure we worked quickly and efficiently and made sure we made fast but informed decisions
We sat and went through different possible concepts we decided we should try and visualise a part of our personalities so that the flag represents our interests. There was a few different topics that we could have followed but we eventually decided to base the flag on our individual favorite and least favorite animals.
At this stage we then had to come up with how we would present the visuals on the flag, we really wanted to use a technique of image making that we had not used before as well as a style that would stand out and look unique on a printed flag.
There were no rules in that sense we could use any form of imagery we wanted, including photography, so we decided this would be an interesting way of representing our concept.
We set off on the task of deciding all our favorite and least favorite animals and once that was complete we visited the library to collect and photocopy images of these animals from wildlife and insect books.
Cutting them out and scanning them in creates a really nice effect which I have always wanted to utilise in a design.
After talking to the Dr.Me guys they re inforced our concept and suggested we made mutant animals out of the scans which we both agreed would be an interesting and visually amusing idea.
So I took on the challenge of creating the mutants while Chris took the remaining images onto Photoshop and started to neaten them up and apply them to a flag layout.
Once all the images were completed we then sat down together and started deciding on how we would layout the images to both look aesthetically pleasing as well as representing a 'good animal' side and a 'bad animal' side.
As we worked we realised that some of the scans we had chosen were missing legs or other limbs so we decided that as it was a quite comical piece we should add extra illustrations or images to the existing scans to give the animals some form of personality and individualism.
Completed design
Once we were happy with the layout and the final design, our next challenge was to get it produced. A dutch company to get it printed, so that is what we have used and the result we were quite pleased with, the quality it has been produced is pretty impressive, and the photos and scans we have used have printed clearly.
Produced flag
More high quality photos to come.
There are three main areas which I have chosen to focus my union Jack redesign on, these three themes, I believe, would represent each country equally in the Union as well as promote a Modernised Britain.
My design concepts are more focused towards a revolutionised flag design rather than just updating the current flag.
1 - The national flowers of each country - this would firstly help create a 3 colour scheme as well as form a basis for the visuals of the flag, the difficulty would be keeping the flags simple, as most of the most visually succesful flags are kept very simple, having complicated illustrations on the flag would more than likely make it confusing and unmemorable.
- England - Rose
- Wales - Daffodil
- N. Ireland - Clover
2 - Use the individual St. flags of each country - This is how the current Union Jack flag was formed, but obviously Wales were not really included in the design because of their late entrance into the Union. therefore using the flags below to create a new outcome would clearly represent the 3 remaining countries.
England - St. George
Wales - St. David
N. Ireland - St. Patrick
3 - The physical Shape of the 3 remaining countries - I thought that perhaps by using the pysical shape of the 3 countries you could create some form of symbolic pattern which could be used as the basis for the sign, by s implying the shapes I started to create simple block representations of each shape, which I thought visually worked quite well.
I want to experiment with possible colour options, obviously the current colours are Red, Blue and White. The blue is the main are representing Scotland so I was playing around with completely new colour combinations as well as simplified colour schemes which incorporate the common colours that represent each country.
Possible colour options
1 - Red and White - These are the 2 colours which are featured in all 3 countries individual flags so this would probably be a good option to follow as these colours are clearly recognised in relation to the union so people would be able to make an easier transition when the flag was changed. rather than just including a new colour which may confuse and upset the audience.
2- Yellow, Red and Green - These were formed from the national flowers of each country, however this combination seems to have no relation to current Britain and reminds me very much of Jamaican Rastafarian colours which isn't unique and doesn't represent the UK.
3 - Red, Yellow and Black - This choice was due to the St. flags of each country, St. Davids flag is black and yellow, and both England and N. Ireland's St. flags are red and white, therefore incorporating the black and yellow element would represent Wales just as equally as England and N. Ireland.
