Ken Adams: Forget ferns if you want a classic flag

Opinion

Silver ferns and korus should be out of bounds when it comes to the design of our flag.

There's nothing wrong with amateur artwork. It's great for telephone books, posters and Christmas cards. But the national flag? Surely we need a professional approach.

Recent New Zealand flag-design proposals in the media underline our geographical and cultural isolation. Television coverage of a school design competition showed the winning design, by a 14-year-old, as yet another fern on black and white.

While input from enthusiastic amateurs is always welcome, the design of a national flag should be more expertly done.

Flags are the axiomatic type of visual communication. You see it; it means something - on an emotional, political and a social level.

Flags are simple. So much so that it may be tempting to think anyone can design one. But a flag's simplicity is deceptive. In fact, a flag's artful visual communication is a true design challenge.

Visual communication consists of combinations of typeface, images, and colour. Almost every message we see in our daily lives communicates in this way. We catch the messages from television, on a billboard or plastered over a bus.

Some messages we ignore, some we find useful and even compelling. We are bombarded with visual noise that is part of the reality of the Western lifestyle we live.
How can a flag step away from this visual clutter? There are no words on a flag. This means that the communication value of the design must now come only from the structure and use of colour.

A new flag is more than another white fern on a black background, or a black and white fern on a black and white background. Likewise, it is more than another koru.

The use of the fern will not do for two reasons. First, the use of black and white has, rightly, been avoided on overseas flags because of the symbolism of the colours - black's association with death and white's link to surrender.

Secondly, the fern came to prominence with the All Blacks and has since been co-opted by other national sporting teams and all sorts of commercial operations. Flag design must relate to nationhood and tradition, not sporting or business interests. Similarly, colour and the koru have combined in recent years to symbolise any number of government departments, organisations and businesses.

The koru has become a cliche. The Air New Zealand shade of teal green is now part of the airline's corporate profile.

Any flag should be above crass commercialism. The design should contain a sense of timelessness. It should not be linked to marketing, advertising and day-to-day politics.

We need to move away from the koru and look for something less hackneyed.

For the design to last the test of time, the structure of it should be above question. It also needs to fit into the global community of flags.

Horizontal and vertical bands are common, as are diagonals. Some smaller countries include elaborate detailing in part, but most flags are simple. The use of colour adds to the symbolism.

In many parts of Europe, bright red on the flag is a reference to blood shed in battle, or lives lost in war. Green acknowledges the landscape in some way. Blue refers to the sea. Many flags use white in a symbolic way, or as a foil to bright bands of colour.

A modern flag that has broken the mould is Canada's maple-leaf design. Adopted in 1965, this new design is widely admired. The flag of Japan also looks modern and strong, the circle being the sun, but it was adopted as early as 1870. The long life of Japan's flag is a good example of the basic principles of geometry applied to a national symbol.

Circles, squares and triangles are simple and unchanging. They transcend fads or passing phases in design or colour. This timelessness should be one of the priorities of any new design.

As with any design brief, there are many alternatives for a designer to consider. The process of making decisions usually comes back to a process of elimination.

How to structure a flag? It is not easy to create a structure that is simple and yet communicates complex meanings. One starting point is to acknowledge our existing flag. Perhaps essential elements could be retained but modernised to symbolise New Zealand's emerging nationhood but also its links with the mother country, no matter how tenuous.

For example, chunks of the Union Jack could remain. Or the colours could be retained, at least in part.

New Zealanders seem to believe that the Southern Cross star formation is unique and special, so the retention of the stars could provide one of the strongest visual links to the existing flag. As in Australia, the issue of flag design here is part of a wider debate over British sovereignty.

Across the Tasman, the issue of a new flag has been simmering for some time. Forty years ago, there was an open competition calling for new designs. Entries poured in, but no definitive action was taken.

In New Zealand there needs to be debate, public consultation and an open competition. The process will not be easy or swift.

Hopefully, New Zealand will select a flag which states clearly that its people are proud of their brief but remarkable history and beautiful land.

And also a flag that is a design sensation. Not just a koru or a silver fern.

* Ken Adams is the head of the faculty of art and design at the ACG Senior College of New Zealand.