After a whole five months, the Seysa-Svitta Flag Contest has concluded. All I can say is that my ideal process for flag selection, overall, works like a charm. The only changes I’d actually make would be reducing the maximum number of entries per person to 3, and also making sure to have a list of potential things to represent, based on a survey of what locals want to see represented on their flag. I also forgot to mention in my ideal process post that when entries are polished, their descriptions are also altered to be more professional. It’s also worth noting that when it won, the symbolism of Seysa-Svitta’s winning entry was altered slightly, with the consent of the flag committee. This seems to be a somewhat common practice in real life.

If you want the exact results of the second vote, here’s a spreadsheet. 28 people voted. I’m surprised at the amount of people—however small—who decided to give multiple entries the same preference. Ultimately, this didn’t cause any harm. Also somewhat surprising is that the second flag vote would’ve had the same result if it were done in the First Past the Post system: proposal 2 got 9 first-choice votes, proposal 3 got 8, 1 got 7, 4 got 5, and 5 got 1.

On an unrelated note, flag contests aren’t actually as expensive as I’d been lead to believe. The flag contest in Pocatello ended up costing only ~$250, since the people involved were either volunteers or people already on the city’s salary. The Seysa-Svitta contest only costed $10, since all the people involved were volunteers, who used free online services to communicate, promote the contest, hold the contest, and tabulate the results. The cost was entirely just rewarding the finalists and winner.

However, if anyone were to use my ideal process for a real city, they’d probably be hiring a professional graphic designer, or even several… be careful when doing this. There seem to be a shocking number of graphic designers who are basically con artists.

Also, seeing how I could implement so much of my ideal process with 9 volunteers over the internet, and a budget of $10, I was struck with a thought: My process could be used just as effectively for official contests as unofficial contests. I don’t see why a group of bored teenagers from smalltown USA couldn’t use my process as a fun project. It was certainly fun for me. After they’re done, they can present the result to their city’s government, and who knows, it might get adopted—a similar thing happened in Clinton, South Carolina. Going the unofficial contest route saves a lot of cost for the city government, since all they have to do then is custom print a handful of physical flags.

One quick final note: I already mentioned it in one of my videos, but seriously, if you’re going to hold a flag contest, get in touch with the moderators of /r/vexillology. Chances are very good that they’ll be interested in helping you, and help you they will.

Also, a very sincere thank you to /u/iSware_ for making the winning entry; /u/Aburrki, /u/Nigugd, and /u/WoweeChums for making the rest of the finalists; /u/occidentis_medii, /u/RRautamaa, and /u/SoaringAven for making the semifinalists; and /u/jabask, /u/occidentis_medii, /u/utilityhotbar, and /u/WoweeChums for making the entries which we unfortunately had to reject for being unheraldic.

If you’re interested in hearing any other notes I had about the Seysa-Svitta contest, here’s my first video on it, and here’s my second video on it.

For that matter, here’s an Imgur album of all the entries, and here’s an album for all the polished entries.