A state panel says Minnesota’s new state flag should feature an eight-pointed North Star against a dark blue background shaped like the state, with a solid light blue field at the right.

Minnesota’s new state flag should feature an eight-pointed North Star against a dark blue background shaped like the state, with a solid light blue field at the right, a special commission decided Tuesday as it picked a replacement for an older design that many Native Americans considered offensive.

The State Emblems Redesign Commission chose the final version on an 11-1 vote after finalizing a new state seal that depicts a loon, the state bird. Unless the Legislature rejects them, the new flag and seal will automatically become official April 1, 2024, when Minnesota observes Statehood Day.

The star echoes Minnesota’s state motto of “Star of the North.” The commission’s chairman, Luis Fitch, said that to him, the light blue represents the Mississippi River, “the most important river in the United States,” pointing to the North Star. But he acknowledged it could mean other things to other people. Symmetry and simplicity won out over other versions, including ones that included a green stripe for the state’s agricultural heritage.

    • Ranvier@sopuli.xyz
      50·
      11 months ago

      Don’t worry, Republican legislators are already in frothing rage about the change. I’m sure it has nothing to do with them wanting to keep the problematic imagery in the current one of native Americans being driven off their land. /s

      Also they’re spreading some conspiracy theory the new flag is supposed to look like the flag of Somalia or something and that this is a prelude to Sharia law being imposed. I wish I was joking. Yeah, because it has blue colors and a star in it, it must be an homage to Somalia, couldn’t have anything to do with being the “land of 10,000 lakes” and “the north star state.” Or even the old flag, which get this, is blue with a big star in it.

      I also liked the version with the stripes better, but this is very nice too, and anything is better than the atrocious current one. The new seal with the loon is very nice too.

      Other states that just lazily slapped their seals on to a blue background take note and get to fixing them up please.

      New seal:

      • IvanOverdrive@lemm.ee
        19·
        11 months ago

        Libtard snowflakes don’t even know what a seal looks like. It sure ain’t looks like a bird, I tell ya

            • Ranvier@sopuli.xyz
              9·
              11 months ago

              I have fantastic news for you, looks like the one I posted was revised slightly before approval. It’s got the red eye now!

              • kase@lemmy.world
                2·
                11 months ago

                They changed the words too! Idk what they mean though, the old words or the new words

                • Ranvier@sopuli.xyz
                  2·
                  11 months ago

                  Old words are the state motto which is in French, star of the north. New words are the Dakota name for the Minnesota river, from which the state derives its name. Some controversy over which barely visible words to go with. Both seem fine to me, I just want that red loon eye.

        • Ranvier@sopuli.xyz
          3·
          11 months ago

          I wish! It’s the state bird though. It’s been the unofficial seal and symbol for some time already. And with all the lakes there are tons of loons.

      • Occamsrazer@lemdro.idEnglish
        1·
        11 months ago

        No that was the tricolor variation that preceded this final design, and it actually did look like a Somalia flag. I think this one will be pretty well liked by pretty much everyone. The only people who won’t like it will instinctively not like it because of the taint of wokeness as a motive to change it. Whatever. But at the end of the day, it was a trash flag and everyone will ultimately agree that it’s better now.

        • Ranvier@sopuli.xyz
          1·
          11 months ago

          Ironically the changes brought it closer to the actual flag of Somalia which is just light blue with a star on it (the three stripes were from some provincial flag, obviously cherry picked out of the many different flags with green blue and white in them to try and rile people up). I don’t care though I think it was a stupid argument anyways. I liked the look of the stripes better, but I like this one too. Just was very tired at seeing the very predictable rhetoric from the right in response to a positive change correcting an ugly poorly designed flag. Glad there’s a new one now.

    • Fisk400@feddit.nu
      26·
      11 months ago

      That is a terrible flag even without the racism. A good flag should be clearly identifiable as an emoji or at least a stamp.

  • cybervseas@lemmy.worldEnglish
    143·
    11 months ago

    Too bad they didn’t go with the Polaris Tri-color. I agree with Grey that it was the best of the color variations.

      • hydrashok@sh.itjust.works
        37·
        11 months ago

        I agree. I do like the tri color and would have been happy with it, but there’s a quote from whom I cannot remember that essentially is “flag design is finding the perfect flag and then dialing it down a notch”. And to that end, I think it succeeds wonderfully.

        It’s modern but classic. Detailed but not busy. Inclusive but not all-encompassing. It’s pretty amazing.

        I am glad they changed the star design; I think the new one is much better.

        • GlitterNinja@lemmy.worldEnglish
          21·
          11 months ago

          My only gripe with the alterations of the submitted design is the star shape change.

          I loved the big points in the cardinal directions with smaller points in between. I dislike this eight-pointed star.

      • chitak166@lemmy.world
        4·
        11 months ago

        They were both good, but I think they made the more-refined “high-brow” decision by going with fewer colors.

        I’m actually jealous of this flag. Only downside is it’s kind of hard to see against the blue sky, lol.

    • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
      22·
      11 months ago

      I would have sworn my eternal allegiance to the Polaris Tri-Color. This one is nice, especially for a state flag, but not inspiring.

    • TheMadnessKing@lemdro.idEnglish
      12·
      11 months ago

      I recently finished watching that video and NGL the tricolor with less toned colors looked pretty beautiful to me.

    • growsomethinggood ()@reddthat.com
      8·
      11 months ago

      I like that they went with the simplified “K” shape for Minnesota (the reverse triangle is really clever visually) but I did also like the more colorful version better. Just a little too plain now for me.

  • Kalash@feddit.ch
    53·
    11 months ago

    It’s worse than the original design with the white/green/blue tri-colour on the right.

    But still a big improvement.

  • harmsy@lemmy.world
    26·
    11 months ago

    I just looked it up out of curiosity, and Minnesota’s old flag is boring and generic AF. It was a member of the “state seal on blue” club.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
      1·
      11 months ago

      As a general rule you should be able to roughly represent the flag in 10 seconds in MS paint using only the pencil tool. If you can’t, it’s a bad flag.

      This flag you can do that the old one with the seal is terrible and you definitely couldn’t because it looks like every other terrible state flag, with a seal.

      • astray@lemm.ee
        1·
        11 months ago

        You over estimate my ms painting abilities. That star would take me ages.

    • sab@kbin.social
      15·
      11 months ago

      I think it’s beautiful! Places it geographically and culturally (north, cold), the colours are nice, and the shapes are simple yet original.

    • snooggums@kbin.social
      7·
      11 months ago

      Many flags are just three color stripes, like France, Germany, and Italy off the top of my head. This has more detail than that without being too complicated due to the angled shape.

      The two shades of blue do suck though, a different color for contrast would help immensely,.

  • Glemek@lemmy.worldEnglish
    16·
    11 months ago

    We’ll be trying to get our hands on a nice flag with the original design#1953 on it to fly outside our house. This one is fine I guess, but it stings with what could have been.

  • OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
    15·
    11 months ago

    Cool flag. I like the solid light blue over the stripes that were an option, K.I.S.S…

    Feel like with that simplified they could have done something with color a little more interesting than the dark blue to really emphasize the shape of that dark blue region but if you can’t give this a 10/10 your standards are too high.

    • 🔍🦘🛎@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      11 months ago

      I liked the tri-color design, but this one is good too, like you said simplicity is best. The dark blue in the K shape is shaped like the state, so the solid color fits.