The crest was designed in 1916 by Ray F. Coyle. He combined a shield formed by three vertical stripes, with an inverted triangle at the top and a lamp of knowledge within the triangle, (that acknowledges our city’s rich educational history). Atop the shield is the silhouette of the State capitol and elements of Stephen F. Austin’s family coat of arms, specifically a Latin cross with crosslets and a pair of wings.

The rest of the city’s crest is still under-represented on the new flag. I think the remaining elements can be sprinkled in to add some true distinction and get rid of the hodgepodge that our flag suffers from.

To represent the state seat of power and the capitol building we will use our own lonestar, and to nod to the cross we will borrow from the St. Andrews cross that adorns the Scottish flag, Stephen F. Austins ancestral homeland.

The Capitol to represent us as the state’s seat of power and elements from Stephen F. Austin’s family crest are important, but can get really fussy — maybe we can represent him in a better way and simplify the flag in the process.

If it were up to a cartographer to symbolize a Capitol on a map they would almost always go with a star. (Good enough for cartography, good enough for Austin’s flag.) Out with the silhouette of the Capitol, in with its own Lone Star.

The cross from Mr. Austin’s family crest is a nice, but ultimately adds clutter and might exclude some citizens. I propose we borrow the official blue of Mr. Austin’s familial homeland flag of Scotland and borrow a little white from the St. Andrew’s cross that adorns the same flag. I think this nods to Mr. Austin and his family crest nicely and cleans up our flag.

Lastly, combining the star and Mr. Austin’s hints of his Scottish homeland all on a field of the Texas flag red, we have a new city flag.

How will it measure up? I think it scores pretty well according to the International Flag Design Guidelines. Let me know what you think. Is it time for this new Austin flag?

So what next

I have learned a lot from the journey this flag design has sent me on (watch me speak about it here). The two things I found that are most important to a flags adoption are:

The flag cannot be a city effort or a private effort it must be owned by the citizens of the community. A flag cannot be a set of cute symbols with meanings attached to them. A flag has to fly for a cause, to be a rally cry for a community of like-minded individuals to point to as a sign of shared pride.

That said this flag design now belongs to the city. In short, this flag design exists under CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication.

Email me for source files at mkriegs77@gmail.com