Northland, NZ (Aug 24 r/vex Flag Contest)
The August 2024 r/vexillology flag contest was about making or redesigning flags for New Zealand's regions, many of which don't have one. You can see all the submissions, ranks, and the full prompt at the official Vexillology Contests website.
My submissions
I made 2 flags for the same category: The flag to the left is a flag for the flagless Kiwi region of Northland (Te Tai Tokerau), heavily influenced by Māoridom. The red, represents life, strength, lineage, and ancestry, which reflects Northland's deep ancestral roots inside the Māori religion, as the region is home to Cape Rēinga, the easternmost part of New Zealand that holds significant religious value. The name of this flag is Te Kōwhaiwhai o Te Tai Tokerau.
The spirits of the dead travel to Cape Rēinga on their journey to the afterlife to leap off the headland and climb the roots of the 800-year-old pōhutukawa tree and descend to the underworld to return to their traditional homeland of Hawaiki, using the Te Ara Wairua, the 'Spirits' pathway'. At Cape Rēinga they depart the mainland. They turn briefly at the Three Kings Islands for one last look back towards the land, then continue on their journey; According to Wikipedia.
The black, a traditional Māori color, represents Te Korekore, the realm of potential and the void from which all things are created. In the center-right there is a traditional sun, which represents Cape Reinga and Tamanuiterā (the Sun god). To the left, a traditional Kōwhaiwhai, a Māori pattern, the Kowhai ngutukaka, which represents a Kākābeak, an endemic plant of Aotearoa, which symbolizes the flora of Northland. The sun is completely original, and the pattern, a very modified, traced-over version of this public domain Wikimedia image made by Augustus Hamilton in 1896.
As I always do in these contests, other than my serious and more traditional flag (the one above), I also took a risk by making a questionable, different, and innovative (negatively). It is also for Northland, its name is Te Waka Rangatira o Te Tai Tokerau, and here is its description that differs from the previous flag:
The white has the universal meaning of peace and balance, representing the peaceful nature of the region and the balance between the past and the future. The last stripe, black, a traditional Māori color, represents Te Korekore, the realm of potential and the void from which all things are created.
In the center there is a waka, a traditional Māori boat of extreme cultural importance, adorned with traditional patterns and koru symbols, as it's possible to see with the massive one above it. To the right, there is a traditional sun, which represents Cape Reinga and Tamanuiterā (the Sun god). The elements are also decorated with vines. All symbols in this flag are completely original.
Opinion
Terrible contest ngl, it was nice participating in it, I just think that it had multiple flaws, like people when they are rating the flags don't actually read the info and understand when 90% of a flag is made out of free images they find on the internet that they just copied and pasted it on an extremely simple design and then call it a day (nothing personal to the "creator" of the top 1 "flag").
Other than that, I absolutely agree and love many of the top flags, and my favorites were:
- The Otago Eight Stripe
- Sunrise over Gisbourne
- Nature's Harmony
- The Head of the Fish
- The Tui of Plenty
- Te Kōwhaiwhai o Te Tai Tokerau
- Star of Northland
- Golden Shore
- Tanaraki - Unfortunate position tbh
I also would like to say that I think that Kuppercup's Star of Northland flag looks absolutely amazing and absolutely deserves the top 1 Northland flag a lot more than the current top 1 "flag", and it is way better than mine. It is pretty lamentable that the flags of Northland Guide and my Northland flag somehow scored lower than whatever the actual fuck is this abomination of a "flag".
Also, why is everyone congratulating Zombie? Their first flag is reasonable and somewhat good but definitely not 2nd place, and the other one is straight up copied from a free image vector website. Not creative at all, he should not have won, at least with his last flag.
The flags for Tanaraki should have been a lot more creative, almost all of them and also somehow "tanaraki peak" are literally copy cats of the official government logo, so unoriginal... Vermicelli-Thick and ralley22 are absolute legends btw.
Overall, I think these were the issues in this contest:
- Tanaraki flags being an absolute shitty remaking of the region's government logo, no creativity at all (most of them, excluding ralley22's and vemicelli's), like Tanaraki Peak
- Northland's top 1 flag not being a flag at all and being an abomination that only won because its maker spammed 0 in all other flags but theirs
- Zombie's designs being effortless and uncreative, straight up copying free image vector websites
- Valley Star flag (the 5th) being unoriginal and super simplistic and effortless
- Malborough Star flag (11th) copying a free image vector website and not doing basically nothing other than putting a border on it
- This flag somehow placing above all the flags below it
Of course, that is all just my opinion, and I'm not accusing anyone, however, I do think that brings up a problem of people just judging the flag by how it looks and not what it means, which basically means people are judging the flags without reading the description, which shows whether a flag was actually made by the supposed creator or 95% made out of free vectors and just arranged in a specific way.