SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Though you won’t see it flying on many flagpoles, Syracuse has a city flag. It’s a tough-to-discern copy of the city seal, featuring smokestacks, the Erie Canal and the words “Central City - City of Syracuse, 1848.”

Experts say it flies in the face of every rule about how to design a good flag.

“Design is inherently subjective, but I would argue our flag is objectively ugly,” said Michael Greene, the Common Councilor spearheading an effort to redesign and replace the flag.

Greene has been floating the idea of a new city flag for more than two years. It began long before he joined the council. This week, he convened the city’s public works committee to talk about whether and why Syracuse needs a new flag.

Joel Winkelman, chair of the Civic Engagement Task Force for Adapt CNY, presented background information and suggestions for how to involve the public during that meeting. Winkelman pointed to Tulsa, Oklahoma as a reference for Syracuse.

Until recently, Tulsa’s flag was an image of its city seal, like Syracuse’s. Because of that, private citizens couldn’t fly it or re-print it, since the seal was only authorized for official government use.

“Only the city could use the seal,” he said. “Which meant that no private citizen could fly the flag.”

Tulsa adopted a new flag in 2018 and licensed it for public use under the Creative Commons copyright. That prompted a boom in merchandising from local businesses, which started stamping the flag on everything from shirts to shot glasses to tiny gnomes, according to one local news report.

Dead Armadillo Craft Brewing, a Tulsa brewery, launched a new series of beer called “Tulsa Flag," which features the flag on its cans.

Winkelman outlined the process by which Tulsa chose its new flag -- one that involved local designers and public input. Something similar could be done in Syracuse, he said.

Greene and Winkelman aren’t the only ones unimpressed with Syracuse’s flag. In a 2015 TED Talk, radio host Roman Mars showed the Salt City’s flag, among others, as an example of how not to make a flag. Flags are about symbols, he said. They shouldn’t need the name of the city written in big letters.

“If you need to write the name of what you’re representing on the flag, your symbolism has failed,” he said. “The United States flag doesn’t say ‘U.S.A.’ across the front."

According to Winkelman, Syracuse’s flag violates all five basic principles of flag design, as outlined by the North American Vexillological Association, a group of flag scholars and enthusiasts. Those principles are:

Keep it simple Use meaningful symbolism Use 2-3 basic colors No lettering, no seals Be distinctive or be related

Syracuse’s flag has very detailed images, wording everywhere, hard-to-distinguish symbols and a very generic design.

On a positive note, Winkelman noted, Syracuse is not on NAVA’s list of the “100 worst flags” in America.

In his 2015 TED Talk, Mars highlighted the flag at the top of that list. It belonged to the small city of Pocatello, Idaho and featured a jumbled mess that included the phrase “Copyright Greater Pocatello Chamber of Commerce” in addition to a trademark symbol.

The former flag of Pocatello, Idaho was considered the worst flag in America by the North American Vaxillological Association.

“There is a scourge of bad flags and they must be stopped,” Mars says in the talk.

After Mars’ TED Talk brought national attention to Pocatello’s flag, city leaders got together to redesign it. In 2017, the city adopted a new, sharp design featuring a sun rising over mountains.

The new flag of Pocatello, Idaho, adopted in 2017.

In Syracuse, Greene wants to kick off a process to engage the community about a new flag. Any process would likely solicit lots of options from designers, then narrow down finalists and pick a flag.

Mars cautioned, however, that no flag should be designed by committee. That’s how Milwaukee, Wisconsin, ended up with one of the worst flags in America -- a flag so convoluted it contains a picture of another flag:

The official flag of the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Chris Baker is a public affairs reporter for syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Contact him via email at cbaker@syracuse.com or follow him on Twitter.

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