Salem vexed by dull banner, looks to redesign city flag

Some residents see Portland's city symbol as better design. Grandson of original flag designer backs idea.

Salem is jealous of Portland. For its flag.

Redesigned in 2002, Portland's iconic flag — with its green background, blue and yellow stripes and four-pointed white star — ranks among the top 10 city flags in the nation, according to a 2004 survey by North American flag experts. And its popularity is evident across Portland, where it's emblazoned on everything from bike helmets to T-shirts to human flesh.







Meanwhile, Salem's 1972 design, which also features blue and yellow stripes and a white star, ranked 51st in the same survey from the North American Vexillological Association. (Vexillology is the study of flags and, yes, that's a real thing.) "I doubt there are any tattoos of the Salem city flag," says prominent vexillologist and Portland resident Ted Kaye.

Stand on any street corner in Oregon's capital and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who could describe what Salem's flag looks like. It flies in only two places, one outside Salem City Hall and the other inside — far away from the bustling downtown.

Now Salem is embarking on an effort to redo its flag.

Sure, it's not an official effort — yet.

But the idea already has at least one prominent backer: the grandson of the flag's original designer.

Richard Hendrie sponsored a city flag design competition in 1972 as head of Salem Federal Savings and Loan, following Portland's decision to adopt a city flag in 1970. Hendrie gave the top designs from the competition to a designer, who merged them into the flag Salem flies today.

"Because it's a culmination of a lot of different designs, it doesn't end up really saying much of anything," says Hendrie's grandson, Andrew Hendrie. "It's worth looking into something that might mean more to the people of Salem."

Hendrie has support from Brian McKinley, a Salem planning commissioner. He wants Salemites to have a design they can proudly display, like in Portland. "I think the reason why our flag isn't being shown is that we lack a sense of who we are as Salemites," McKinley said. "Plus, it's ugly."

On paper, it doesn't look terrible. But the colors are muted. The font is soft. Nothing really stands out. Salem Mayor Chuck Bennett dismisses it as "a logo on a stick."

Its greatest offense? It has the letters S-A-L-E-M on it. Kaye, the vexilloligist, says that represents the flag's failure to achieve symbolic imagery.

"Can you imagine a country writing the name of the country on the flag — can you imagine writing 'France' on the flag?" Kaye says. "Yet, we do it in American states. And there's this mistaken idea that, 'Oh well, we have to write our name on the flag or nobody will know that that's our flag.' Well, how does anybody know that that's France's flag? It's because they've learned that that's France's flag, and because it's a great design, people remember the design."

Kaye published a 16-page pamphlet in 2006 that serves as the seminal guidebook for great flag design, Good Flag, Bad Flag. But he's been more in demand as an expert since radio personality Roman Mars prominently featured Good Flag, Bad Flag in his 2015 TED talk titled "Why City Flags May Be the Worst Designed Thing You've Never Noticed," which has been viewed over 4 million times.

"If you don't see your city flag, maybe it doesn't exist, but maybe it does and it just sucks," Mars says at the end of the talk, "and I dare you to join the effort to try to change that."

McKinley did just that after taking a close look at Salem's flag a few years ago and deciding it needed an upgrade. He emailed the Portland Flag Association and was directed to Kaye, who has offered guidance. "People know that that's Chicago's flag or Washington's flag or Portland's flag," Kaye says. "Salem has that same opportunity."

The project rests in the hands of a group of city administrators who are expected to make a presentation on the project in the fall, after which city officials will officially decide whether to pursue a flag redesign.

Bennett, Salem's mayor since January, says he's eager to improve the city — and its emblem. "I'm here to help," he says. "I'm here to help make it happen."