Milwaukee Flag
November, 2015. Medium: Paint Size: 30cm by 46cm Exhibition Text:
Milwaukee has been my home town my whole life. It is a united city with a lot of amazing aspects and many accomplishes. This flag represents that. I created this design on paint. An inspiration I used was the 2015 Brewhaha logo. |
Process:
-Planning. To start out this project, I started to think of things that I connect with Milwaukee and that largely represent this city to me. I started thinking largely of the art museum because as you can see in my sketch, I was interpreting the museum building as an "M". The museum is a great part of the community but, not representative of the whole city. So, thinking of the city as a whole, I started thinking of the tremendous brewing industry we have in Milwaukee. It is something that people outside of the city recognize us for. |
I think the city has been very successful with the brewing industry and it is something that we are proud of. We have Milwaukee Lakefront, MKE Brewing, Great Lakes Distillery, Ale House, Pabst, Miller Brewing. It is something all around the city. Everyone can name one brewing company in Milwaukee. So being apart of Milwaukee Brewcity Bruisers roller derby (coincidence huh), the 2015 Brewhaha logo was a bottle cap. So that is what I went with. Something more modern then lots of flags. I feel Milwaukee is a modern city and it's something I think the citizens of the city would like to hang in there windows and outside there houses.
http://brewcitybruisers.com/ http://mkebrewing.com/ http://www.lakefrontbrewery.com/ http://www.millercoors.com/ http://www.greatlakesdistillery.com/ http://pabstbrewingco.com/ |
So the brewing industry is the main point in my flag. I added on a strip through the middle of the bottle cap to develop the flag, to make it more interesting and to give it more meaning. At first, it was going to represent the Milwaukee river. But I thought of something even more representative of Milwaukee, the lakefront of Milwaukee. Summerfest is the world's largest music festival located on the lakefront of Milwaukee. The art museum is on the lakefront, Discovery world, Bradford beach. The lakefront is a popular and lively part of Milwaukee.
I definitely reference the Ted Talk with Roman Mars, "Why city flags may be the worst-designed thing you never noticed." With his 5 basic rules of flag design: 1. Keep it simple, so simple a child can draw it from memory. 2.Use meaningful symbolism. 3.Use two to three basic colors. 4.No lettering or seals of any kind. 5.Be distinctive or be related. https://www.ted.com/talks/roman_mars_why_city_flags_may_be_the_worst_designed_thing_you_ve_never_noticed?language=en
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Trying to draw on the detail for the bottle cap was a pain. Trying to free hand it on a laptop pad wasn't the greatest technique. Hoping to increase my ability on photoshop for a better turn out next time. Or use my bamboo tablet. Which, I am not very confident with but, can always practice with it. I also need to get photoshop at home to be able to experiment more.
Reflection: I like the way my flag turned out. I think it is something that represents Milwaukee and clearly demonstrates the accomplishments of this great city. I have lived in Milwaukee my whole life. This flag is definitely something I would proudly hang outside of my house and proudly have a sticker of on the bumper on my car. I think the brewing industry is something Milwaukee needs to be proud of. It makes up our local community and impacts the rest of the businesses and community. It helps make our city memorable and fun. |
I did some experimentation for color combinations in my sketchbook. I wanted to make an attractive look and a more modern look because that what I see Milwaukee as. Yellow seemed to easily go well with the brewing industry and help create that look. It was a little harder to decide what the Milwaukee lakefront color should be and the river color. But obviously was thinking of blue and green shades. I wanted the colors to stand out compared to other flags. I wanted it to be unique and modern. I believe I accomplished that with my color choices. I wanted to make unique color choices but, I also still wanted the colors to make it look like a flag. I think the stripe in the middle really gives it a flag look.
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