In 2017, someone accidentally flew the Nebraska state flag upside down at the capitol in Lincoln for 10 days before someone noticed the error.
It’s understandable. It’s a busy state seal placed over a dark blue background that looks like state flags from several other states that seems to have been designed around the same time.
I imagine this conversation from state flag designers of that era:
“I know, let’s put our indecipherable state seal on a safe dark blue background,” says one.
“Yeah, sounds cool. Maybe we can plaster a conestoga wagon on it too so it shows our pioneering history,” the co-designer responds.
We’re fortunate in New Mexico to have a flag design that is consistently ranked in the top 10 (most of the time top five) designs of all state flags.
The iconic red Zia symbol over the yellow gold background is a simple and elegant expression about our state. And as I’ve said before, it’s pretty much foolproof. If you hang it upside down, no one would notice. I’m sure if it was accidentally hung vertically, there’d be a quick adjustment.
I’ve written previous posts about our flag. The New Mexico Secretary of State’s Website has this historical information about it:
In 1920, the New Mexico Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (D.A.R.) advocated the adoption of a flag representative of New Mexico’s unique character. Three years later, the D.A.R. conducted a design competition, which was won by the distinguished Santa Fe physician and archeologist, Dr. Harry Mera. The doctor’s wife, Reba, made the winning flag design with a symbolic red Zia on a field of yellow. In March of 1925, Governor Arthur T. Hannett signed the legislation, which proclaimed the Mera design as the official state flag.
But it could have been much worse. The original state flag was designed by self-appointed New Mexico historian Ralph Emerson Twitchell, a prominent figure in the early years of New Mexico’s statehood. Said to have been a member of the infamous “Santa Fe Ring,” Twitchell came to the state from Chicago in 1882 or 1885 as an attorney representing the Santa Fe Railway. He became enamored with New Mexico and later began writing what was then considered to be the definitive book on New Mexico history. The enormous two-volume “The Facts of New Mexican History” weighed 20 pounds. Over the years, the luster of Twitchell’s book has faded a bit, with current historians questioning some of his facts.
And at some point, Twitchell submitted the following mind-boggling design for the state’s official flag:
There are so many weird things about this design. First, the moniker “The Sunshine State” was usurped by Florida in 1949 and then made official in 1970 before New Mexico could officially claim that wording. Although “sunshine state” had appeared on New Mexico license plates as early as 1932, the New Mexico Legislature never got around to adopting that wording. The more appropriate wording “Land of Enchantment” had been used by a state tourism agency starting in 1935, but it was not officially adopted until 1999. The great seal of New Mexico (which is actually a pretty good design that I’ve written stories about previously) is displayed in what would be an awkward spot in the lower right hand corner of the flag — even smaller and less visible than the one on the forgettable Nebraska state flag. The main color of the flag may or may not be turquoise. (It looks more like a teal green to me, which does not seem to represent anything New Mexico other than a scrub juniper or dark-colored sagebrush). The American flag on the upper left hand corner has 48 stars (which you have to assume would be updated as more states were added to the union.) The “47” appears to designate that New Mexico is the 47th state to be admitted to the union before Arizona. — a number that many people would find confusing without knowing our history. And then for some strange reason, the words “New Mexico” seem to have a typographic anomaly of shrinking in font size as one reads from left to right.
Twitchell may have been widely acclaimed for his historical work, but I think we can all conclude that he should have stayed away from graphic design. And some current historians apparently think he should have stayed away from writing about New Mexico’s history.
aero-cordero.com 