File Photo Unveiling a new City of Minot flag at a State of the City event in February 2018 are Mark Jantzer, left, and Shaun Sipma, right. At far left is then mayor Chuck Barney.

Flag connoisseurs say it is time for a new City of Minot flag. 

Mayor Tom Ross agrees and says something new is in the works.

A survey conducted in late 2022 by the North American Vexillogical Association (NAVA), an organization with more than 1,000 flag enthusiasts and scholars, asked respondents to rate the designs of 312 flags created in the last five years, including the City of Minot flag, which was unveiled at the State of the City event in February 2018. The maroon-colored flag sports the City of Minot logo.

The 308 NAVA members and 2,544 public participants who voted in the survey gave the Minot flag a 1.39 out of 10, or a grade of F, for its design. It might be consoling to know that 46% of the flags in the survey scored an F. Only 15% earned an A and 16% a B.

“What that tells us is it’s an opportunity to improve,” Ross said of the survey. He said the city’s public information office has been tasked with recommending an improved, more modern city logo that will be incorporated into a new flag design and other city communication.

A well-designed city flag can foster civic pride and community cohesion, according to NAVA. 

Although there are no rules, NAVA offers some general principles for flag design: keep it simple; use meaningful symbolism; stick with two or three basic colors in most instances; no lettering or seals; and either be distinctive or use similarities to show connection.

A sign that a flag design is a good one is that it is fondly adopted by its people, said Steve Wheatley of Illinois, second vice president with NAVA. It may appear on T-shirts, on mugs, on first responder uniforms. A flag that needs improvement is one the public doesn’t know exists, or if they do know, they aren’t interested in using it, he said.

“People are more interested in flags than they were 20 or 30 years ago. What makes flags important is that people care about them,” Wheatley said.

Minot’s original city flag, which faded into history, had been designed in 1916 by the Town Criers, a branch of the Chamber of Commerce. It included a blue stripe representing skies, a golden stripe for grains and a black stripe for lignite coal. “Why Not Minot” was printed inside a circle trimmed with green to represent city parks.

As cities and towns continue to adopt new or redesigned flags, NAVA hopes its survey results provide community leaders, designers and others with valuable information about recent successful and appealing designs that are rated highly by the public and widely used.

Wheatley said the flag assessment survey was not to make judgements about the flags but to point out where improvements can be made to instill a sense of community pride. 

“Most people see a flag every day, whether it’s in a school classroom or outside the post office or outside someone’s house, and most people take them completely for granted. To me, what’s so wonderful is the more you study flags and know flags, that knowledge is a sort of open sesame to the history and ideas and stories that are behind individual flags,” he said.

For the survey’s full results and flag images visit https://nava.org/2022-survey.

NAVA is a flag studies and flag promotion organization with a scholarly journal, quarterly magazine and regular meetings. In addition to flag design guidance, it is engaged in flag conservation efforts in museums and archives.