Tartan concepts, input appreciated

[OC Richard]

I've been working on designing a bespoke tartan for a Fire Department Pipe Band. The firemen have expressed favour of a predominately dark blue tartan with some red stripes and some green in there as well. After designing quite a few and mulling over them, this is my favourite:



It has three different blues, the idea coming from Isle of Skye which has three different greens.

One of the guys said that he would like "more lines". He thinks the tartan above is too stark or simple perhaps.

Here's an idea with more red lines introduced into the blue area. I myself don't think it any improvement, but it is interesting



What does the rabble think? Is either design dangerously close to something already out there? Thanks! Richard

(I checked Scotland 2000 and it's rather different though having the same basic colours.)

PS I discovered some interesting things in working through several variations of this basic design. One it that if I don't have black lines reinforcing the widest red stripe, that entire portion of the tartan looks weaker than the rest. Those black lines are necessary to restore balance. The second is that I found it necessary to have blue lines in the red/green area, to integrate that area with the blue area. If I take them out the tartan looks unbalanced with a nice blue area and an overly Christmas-y red/green area.