I designed a new Australian flag

Inspired by Roman Mars’ (99% Invisible) TED Talk, I designed a new flag for Australia based off Ted Kaye’s rules for good flag design. This is most likely in the event of Australia becoming a republic. Below is my flag design and reasoning, but before that I think it’s important to talk about why Australia should have a redesigned flag.

Australian flag since 1901

It’s been spoken about before, but let’s go through it quickly.

 Things I like about it

• I like the colours of the flag. They are a well-chosen trio of colours (borrowed from Britain) which are aesthetically pleasing to me.
• The Federation Star (below the Union Jack) is a great example of a simple and powerful symbol. Children can draw it and it has great historical value.

Major design issues

It is cluttered with three different symbols and therefore  three major focal points.

• The Union Jack, while nice on its own, floats awkwardly in the top corner of the flag. How relevant is the Union Jack and Britain to the Australian way of life now? Forty-four out of forty-nine nations of the Commonwealth have abandoned the Union Jack on their flags? Why? I assume not out of spite, but because they have forged their own national identity, and it is probably only proximally related to Britain.

• The Southern Cross is not a constellation unique to Australia (the seven-pointed star modifications are, however). The Southern Cross is currently found on the flags of Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Samoa and Papua New Guinea.

• The seven-pointed Federation Star sits centered below the Union Jack. I feel like its purpose has already been served by having seven-pointed stars in the Southern Cross, making it a tautology. It was possibly only included for visual balancing.

Current national flags with the Southern Cross on them. From the top: Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Samoa and Papua New Guinea

Designing a new flag could allow inclusion of the Indigenous Australians into our national identity. That might be nice. It would also give Australia an opportunity to have a modern, simplified flag which represents us today. My proposed flag is below: 

Flag available here in scalable svg format

Design philosophy

Keep it simple

• This flag is simple, anyone could draw it and it would be easily recognisable. There is one clear focal point: the Federation Star.
• The flag has standard flag dimensions of 1:2. 

Use meaningful symbolism

• If Australia was to become a republic, then we would most certainly ditch the Union Jack. The most important part of the Australian flag from my perspective isn’t the Southern Cross (which can be seen predominantly across the Southern hemisphere). Instead I utilised the seven-pointed Federation Star, symbolising the Federation of Australia (in 1901) and all the territories and states within.
• I would have liked to use a kangaroo, but it seemed gimmicky and QANTAS would love it too much. Would it be weird to have an animal on our flag that we also eat?
• The Indigenous Australian flag is quite elegant in my opinion, so I borrowed heavily off its design. The Federation Star is seen here in place of the sun, coloured gold.

Use two or three basic colours

This was the trickiest bit of the flag because using colours that represents all Australians is hard.

• The Australian green and gold combination looks terrible. Green does not go with ‘gold’ in my opinion. It looks tacky.
• The black in the Indigenous Australian flag represent the Indigenous Australians, so this wouldn't be representative of everyone.
• I got around this by going with dark blue. This represents the sky, as well as being reminiscent of the British Blue Ensign currently displayed on the Australian flag. This works well with the red (representing the earth just as in the Indigenous Australian flag), and the golden sun/star. Technically, most stars in the sky we see are suns, so it works.

No lettering or seals

None included

Be distinctive or be related

• I designed the flag in this way to marry the two major components of Australian history; the pre-colonised indigenous Australia and the British-colonised Australia. This was done in an effort to reconcile both histories within today's modern Australia.
• The flag contains elements of both the current Australian flag and the Indigenous Australian flag to reflect this. Also creating new things is hard, and using currently established symbols seems like a much better idea.

So it was pointed out to me that I basically created an inverted Viet Cong flag. Lol. This is hard.



Should Australia become a republic?

I mean, probably, I guess? I think it makes sense, but I wonder what the actual changes to society would be, because I assume not much. There are many more pressing and existential issues such as climate change, nuclear escalation and wealth inequality which deserve the full attention of legislators. If it’s not going to cost too much (besides souvenir shops who will have to restock thousands of little koalas which clip onto pens, holding little flags) and create legal issues for citizens then sure. I can’t see why people would be against it.

Even if Australia does not become a republic, there is still an opportunity for us to pick up a new and improved flag. In reality, this isn’t a big issue and barely registers as one. I just got caught up in trying to design a new flag. It was much harder and took much longer than I thought. I am actually too embarrassed to publish the trial and error flags I designed along the way. Below is my alternative design.

S'truth m8

I don't think what I have designed is perfect, but I can't be bothered spending any more time on this. If you have any alternatives or any feedback, let me know.