State Seal Tartan Collection

**Jock Scot** · 25th February 15, 04:28 AM

Originally Posted by davidlpope

Respectfully, I wish this project had not been undertaken. Fashion tartans notwithstanding, I'm concerned that this will lead to confusion in the general public and less use of the real Carolina tartan. Seems a shame when the Carolina tartan is not available from stock anywhere.

An interesting reply David. I wonder if you would care to expand on it, for the benefit of those parties outwith your shores who may not understand the "undercurrents" that you and others are hinting at?

**Nick Sweeney** · 25th February 15, 06:37 AM

Stop adding more awesome stuff. It keeps adding to things I want to get. Both the California (birth state) and the Nevada (state I consider my home) Tartans look awesome.

**OC Richard** · 25th February 15, 07:47 AM

I will say that those couple posted look much more tartanlike than the simpleminded diagrammatic clumsy modern tartans one usually sees elsewhere.

I shouldn't be too hard on some of the new designs because it's a very difficult design problem, designing a tartan using non-tartan things as one's model, and it takes quite a bit of tartan design savvy to overcome that handicap.

So what's next, State Flag tartans?? Kind of boring, most of them would be predominantly dark blue. Maryland's would be a wild thing to design. Arizona's would be very colourful. West Virginia's mostly white with fat blue stripes- meh. California's flag is a series of horizontal elements; just flip and cross and there's a ready-made tartan, though perhaps ugly.

**RockyR** · 25th February 15, 07:55 AM

Originally Posted by OC Richard

I will say that those couple posted look much more tartanlike than the simpleminded diagrammatic clumsy modern tartans one usually sees elsewhere.

I shouldn't be too hard on some of the new designs because it's a very difficult design problem, designing a tartan using non-tartan things as one's model, and it takes quite a bit of tartan design savvy to overcome that handicap.

So what's next, State Flag tartans?? Kind of boring, most of them would be predominantly dark blue. Maryland's would be a wild thing to design. Arizona's would be very colourful. West Virginia's mostly white with fat blue stripes- meh. California's flag is a series of horizontal elements; just flip and cross and there's a ready-made tartan, though perhaps ugly.

@OC Richard - That was one original idea for the State Collection... basing the designs on the state flags. We immediately ran into the same conclusion that you did: MOST of the state flags are red / white / blue (some with another color or two thrown in). There are only so many 'original' ways to spin up a red / white / blue tartan design, so we opted to go with a more colorful state symbol... the great seal of each state.

**OC Richard** · 25th February 15, 08:07 AM

Yes indeed, and there's stuff like this! I took a quick stab at Maryland, whew is it ugly. Not much can be done, really, considering you're stuck with one half being yellow and black, the other half being white and red, and all four jarring colours have to be shown more or less equally

**RockyR** · 25th February 15, 08:12 AM

Originally Posted by OC Richard

Yes indeed, and there's stuff like this! I took a quick stab at Maryland, whew is it ugly. Not much can be done, really, considering you're stuck with one half being yellow and black, the other half being white and red, and all four jarring colours have to be shown more or less equally

Yup. You've perfectly articulated (and shown) the issue when trying to design something with pre-determined colors.... especially ones that work in one medium, but not in tartan.

BTW, it's agreed that the design you came up with DOES represent their flag, but how commercially viable it would be is definitely 'suspect' IMHO.