A common issue among municipalities across the country is the abysmally low quantity of good city/town/county flags. For every Chicago or Washington, D.C., there is a Pocatello or, god-forbid, a Milwaukee (To the former’s credit, they did eventually adopt a much better flag in 2017).

So, one may ask themselves: where does Wake County stand in all of this? Are our flags closer to the greats, or are they closer to the eye-bleedingly awful crimes against cloth.

Answer: they are at the sixth circle of vexillological hell.

We’ll take a look at each of the flags of the major towns in Wake County, and poke fun at just how awful they are, and how they could possibly be improved.

Firstly, we must address an important question: what makes a good flag? To answer that question, I’d highly recommend watching Roman Mars’ TED talk, “Why city flags may be the worst thing you’ve never noticed.” To put it briefly, a good flag should:

Be simple enough that a child could draw it from memory.

Use meaningful symbols that accurately portray the character or history of a city.

Use two or three basic colors.

Have no lettering or seals of any kind.

Be distinctive (or be very similar to other, related flags. For example, the Australian state flags all share a common theme)

With that being said, I will assign a score out of five (one point for each criteria) to each municipal flag. Today, we’ll look at Wake County’s and Raleigh’s flags.

First up, Wake County’s very own flag.

Just from looking at it, one can pretty easily tell that Wake County’s flag is not a very good one. Let’s go down the list of what makes a good flag, and how Wake County’s flag holds up.

Be simple enough that a child could draw it from memory.

Wake County’s flag is somehow so poorly drawn that I would believe a child made it in Microsoft Paint, yet at the same time is so complicated that no child would ever be able to draw it from memory. It kind of reminds me of the Liberian county flags.

The inclusion of the state capitol building, as beautiful as it is, makes this flag terrible all by itself. Putting aside the fact that it’s a crappy representation of the capitol (Why does part of the building look like it was ripped away in a flood?), the illustration of the building is far too intricate to be on a flag.

Use meaningful symbols that accurately portray the character and history of a region.

Wake County’s flag somewhat does this. The capitol is indeed an important part of the county’s history. An admittedly nice touch to the flag are the stars; from what I can gather, each represents a municipality within the county. If these stars were a bigger part of the flag (and not just crammed into the corners) I’d probably give this flag an infinitesimally higher score.

Use two or three basic colors.

If you removed the hideous capitol illustration, the shading on the stars, and the lettering, the flag would have passed this requirement. Alas, those things are there, so Wake’s flag fails this criteria too.

Have no lettering or seals of any kind.

Fail.

Be distinctive.

Despite being an orgy of artistic weirdness, I wouldn’t recognize the Wake County flag if I saw it flying on a flagpole. It looks like most other crappy county or city flags.

Total score: 0/5

Don’t get me wrong; there are some kernels of the good flag design in this steaming heap of garbage. For instance, I think that if the stars were more central and important part of the flag, they could improve it dramatically. I also think that instead of a intricate-yet-poorly-drawn rendition of the capitol building, a more minimalistic rendering of the building could go a long way making the flag less of an eyesore.

Let’s move on to Wake County’s principal city, Raleigh.

Raleigh’s flag is not nearly as far gone as the Wake County’s flag, but some work could certainly be done. Let’s run down the criteria.

Be simple enough that a child could draw it from memory.

The flag’s front side fails this; the city’s seal is much too complicated to be drawn from memory with any accuracy. However, the reverse side has some hope in this regard. The back, which shows the coat of arms of Sir Walter Raleigh (more on that later) is relatively simple, minus the deer atop it. Based on this, I’m giving Raleigh’s flag ½ of a point in this criteria.

Use meaningful symbols that accurately portray the character and history of a region.

Like with the previous criteria, the reverse side of the flag does this pretty well. Given that Raleigh is named after Sir Walter Raleigh, it would seem fitting that his coat of arms belongs on the city’s flag. Aside from the coat, the colors of the flag (red and white) are the colors of Sir Walter Raleigh’s crest, bringing further symbolism to the flag. The obverse, however, just features the city’s seal. While I believe that the oak tree (or at the very least, the acorn) can be incorporated into a good flag, the seal is just too garish and overwhelming.

Use two or three basic colors.

Neither side does this. The reverse would have passed this requirement, but in a rather confusing move, the coat of arms features gray diamonds instead of white ones.

Have no lettering or seals of any kind.

Fail.

Be distinctive.

Raleigh’s flag isn’t very distinctive in the realm of city flags. The tricolor pattern is fairly common (see New York’s flag, for instance), and the presence of the seal makes in indiscernible from many other government flags.



Total score: 1/5

Like the Wake County flag, Raleigh’s flag has some merit hidden underneath the crap. I could definitely see a good flag being made out of the Raleigh coat of arms, similar to how the Maryland flag is modeled after the coat of arms of Lord Baltimore. Some redesigns using this concept have been proposed, including this one made by Reddit user spiscit.

However, some argue that the coat of arms shouldn’t be a major part of the flag; former city councilman Bonner Gaylord told the News & Observer in 2015 that, “it doesn’t really tie into the city or represent who we are as a community.”

So what are some alternative symbols that could be used to represent Raleigh? Well, there’s of course the acorn, and by extension the oak tree. Both are widely accepted symbols of the city, with the city dropping a massive acorn on New Year’s Eve every year, and the city itself being nicknamed the “City of Oaks.” Several redesign concepts have featured the acorn in some way. I’m kind of a fan of this one made by Reddit user Lazyspartan101, as it incorporates both the coat of arms and the majestic acorn.

Now, if you’ve made it this far in this article, you probably understand or at least appreciate the value of a good flag. But some Raleighites and Wake County residents may wonder “why should we care about our flag, there are more pressing issues at hand?” And that’s a completely fair concern; Raleigh and Wake County are undergoing massive changes that certainly need to be made a priority. But flags do something for a community that cannot be measured quantitatively the way building a bus rapid transit system or hundreds of units of affordable housing can. A good flag can help instill pride in one’s city, in that it gives the citizens of the city a symbol to rally behind. Not to mention all of the kitsch with the flag on it that local retailers could sell.