BELLINGHAM — A Bellingham graphic artist who designed the city’s iconic flag and official seal is raising money for a modern update of the Washington state flag — just in time for the banner’s centennial.
Bradley Lockhart, who sells Whatcom County memorabilia online and at his Northwest Corner Goods store downtown, has crafted a contemporary version of the current state flag.
“(Washington’s flag) was never really designed in the first place. It was never meant to be a flag. It was the state seal. They slapped it on a green sheet and called it good,” Lockhart told The Bellingham Herald.
“In Washington, we can at least start the conversation that our flag is not the best and we should do something about it,” Lockhart said.
Washington’s flag was adopted on March 5, 1923, almost 100 years ago. It was designed by the Washington chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
“How about having a new flag to mark 100 years of having this flag? Maybe this could be the 100th anniversary flag,” Lockhart said.
He suggested a statewide contest, much in the way that the Alaska state flag was adopted from an idea submitted by a 14-year-old Indigenous boy.
Lockhart said he sketched his Washington flag design in 2017, and even sells stickers of it, but has never mass-produced the full banner.
Kickstarter campaign
So he launched a Kickstarter campaign on Flag Day, hoping to raise enough for an initial printing of his new design, which incorporates the colors of the current flag into a symbolic blue, green and white representation of the Northwest’s seas, skies and mountains.
Within a day, the Kickstarter had raised more than $6,800, topping the goal of $4,900, and he had 120 pre-orders.
His video championing the new flag garnered 300,000 views and nearly 450 comments on the Reddit site r/vexillogy, a page focused on the study of flags, Lockhart said.
His updated state flag design features five mountain peaks, representing Washington’s five volcanoes, forming the letters WA on a field of blue and green, along with a compass rose design to evoke the Puget Sound and the Salish Sea.
“I’m not trying to censor George Washington. It’s really not about that at all. I’m not suggesting that we change the seal. It’s about fixing the flag and making it its own thing,” Lockhart said.
Creating a new flag
Changing the flag would take an act of the Legislature because the current flag is codified in state law.
Almost half of the 50 U.S. states have flags that mirror their state seal, like Washington and Oregon, while others use artistic designs that reflect the state’s character and history, such as California, Colorado and New Mexico.
It’s not unusual for states to redesign their flags, either.
Mississippi recently changed its flag to remove its racist ode to the Confederacy, and Michigan and Utah are redesigning theirs.
“Big things can come from small campaigns like this, even if it isn’t official,” Lockhart said.
