Spirit of 1994

[SlackerDrummer]

Mike,

I like the idea, but I think the color arrangement could be improved to more closely resemble the flag. By switching the blue and green on yours and alternating the wide (now) blue stripe with the wide red stripe, you can have the colors match up exactly how the flag does:



To give it a little more pizazz, you could also add some white pinstripes in the middle of the red and blue sections, like this:



Regards,

[Mike_Oettle]

Hi, Ken – I am unable to make sense of your suggestions, because the images have been replaced on my screen by a picture of a frog on an ice block – many images posted from the US on X Marks have this problem for me (and I am not sure in what other countries the problem exists).
Perhaps you should link your pictures from Photobucket.
Regards,
Mike

[SlackerDrummer]

I uploaded the images to my album here and edited my previous post. See if that helps.

[Mike_Oettle]

Hi, Ken – you have some useful ideas there, but now the red and blue are too large, and the pinstripes don’t work for me.
Regards,
Mike

[SlackerDrummer]

Hi, Ken – you have some useful ideas there, but now the red and blue are too large, and the pinstripes don’t work for me.

I think the proportion of blue and red are not so much too big in the non-pinstriped version. They are after all fairly large swaths on the flag. In your version, which takes its colors from the flag, colors abut which do not in the flag and the green sections have far too much prominence. If the goal is to mimic the flag, I think my top version does a better job in its order of the colors. You could of course adjust the widths to suit your liking. If it isn't the goal to mimic the flag, but rather just to use the color-scheme, I'd like to see some more interesting patterns than just largish squares with "fimbriations". Just my two cents.

[davidlpope]

I think you should make it look more like a tartan and less like a flag. By that, I mean you should choose a "background color" and then vary the widths of the other colors so that it is not so uniform. Here's a very rough idea of what I mean:

[davidlpope]

To give it a little more pizazz, you could also add some white pinstripes in the middle of the red and blue sections, like this:

Reminds me of the Caledonia tartan:

[Mike_Oettle]

After long consideration and some playing around at Scotweb this evening, I have come up with these two variations. The first is in colours as close as I could get them to the actual flag colours, while the second is in colours more traditionally associated with kilts.
Let me know what you folks think of them.
Spirit of 1994 (flag colours):

Spirit of 1994 (tartan colours):

Regards,
Mike

[English Bloke]

I think it's a tremendous idea Mike. I worked in Zimbabwe for a year in 1997 with blokes from nine different Southern African countries and it seemed the whole of the region was filled of hope for the future, following South Africa's lead in 1994 so the name I think, is spot on!

Of all your designs I like your first one best. I like the uneven spacing more than the other two and I think it better captures the uniqueness of the flag. I agree the tartan should be filled with vibrant colours as I think that's the point.

Press on Sir and good luck with this. Official recognition may be just around the corner.

P.S. I watched the '97 Lions Tour in Pubs in Nyanga (Zim) and Harare. I was vastly outnumbered but man! What a blast!

[davidlpope]

The last two designs look to me like simple tweed "gun club" checks. I encourage you to vary the relative thicknesses of the stripes if the point is to make a tartan. As far as the particular colors, I wouldn't get so hung up on that, either. Tartan colors are usually left to the weaver (or whoever commissions the tartan) and are best left IMO in normal threadcount descriptors- Blue, Red, Black, Azure, Green, etc. Being too picky about colors will get in the way of a really nice design.

Although many may dislike the American Bicentennial tartan for it's bright colors, it shows how one can draw inspiration from a flag yet still create an interesting design: