Arts Commission presents semifinalists for new City of Toledo flag
TOLEDO – The City of Toledo will retire its current flag, adopted in 1994, and introduce a new city flag with input from the community.
Officially, all entries are anonymous. However, one of the semifinalists is already publicly known: Toledoan Jacob Parr.
Parr’s research and suggestions on redesigning the official flag was presented to Toledo City Council in 2022, and he said he’s excited about the current effort, whether his flag is chosen or not.
“I was able to instigate what, to me, is a very meaningful conversation on civic pride,” Parr said. “The point of this project was to give back to the city I love.”
Toledo’s current flag uses what was then the newly updated city seal as its core design. It’s not seen in public much. Rachel Hart, director of communications for City of Toledo, said it is on display at city hall but likely “not many other places.”
An earlier city flag, in use from 1909 through 1994, features an illustration of a stockade fort against blue and white stripes. That said, the newer flag, adopted during the administration of then-mayor Carleton “Carty” S. Finkbeiner, doesn’t quite fit today’s best practices.
“There are some well-established principles for flag design. Our current flag fails all of them,” Hart said.
It was 2015 when Parr started his curiosity and research into such a project. He is a Toledo School for the Arts graduate and works in design. At one point, he was listening to podcasts on design concepts, including one that discussed flags. During the stay-at-home initiatives during the COVID-19 pandemic, he had time to brainstorm and research on what he thought was an intriguing idea.
He presented his flag redesign idea – a blue and white banner with a yellow spark – to Toledo mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz in 2021. The suggestion started working its way through city hall. Parr’s earlier presentation is still available for review on his graphic design website.
“It was almost adopted as the official Toledo flag,” Chloe Nousias said about Parr’s proposal. She is the marketing communications manager for The Arts Commission. What happened instead, as the idea faced city council in 2022, is the proposal stalled out.
Questions were raised about getting more public involvement. Kapszukiewicz re-introduced the project in his most recent State of the City address. This time, The Arts Commission, a nonprofit organization that manages Toledo’s public art collection, was asked to get involved.
“The Arts Commission has been a really great partner,” Harr said.
“It’s all very exciting,” Parr said about the decision to move forward.
In the current process, submissions opened June 28 and were due Aug. 28. Only city of Toledo residents could participate.
The Design Review Board, which includes representatives from Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo City Council and The Arts Commission, was tasked to narrow down the list of submissions.
Semifinalists went on public display, with comments taken Sept. 20-22 during the Momentum Festival arts celebration in downtown Toledo.
“We had a lot of good feedback at the festival,” Nousias said.
Area residents also are invited to review the concepts and share their thoughts at The Art Commission website. The PDF of design choices includes descriptions of why certain colors, shapes or symbols were chosen.
The review board will then name a top design and two runners-up for review and adoption. A final selection announcement is set for Jan. 7.
“That’s Toledo’s birthday,” Hart said, referring to the city’s official founding date of Jan. 7, 1837.
If area residents notice a simple, modern design style among the choices as compared to the currently used city flag, that’s intentional. Participants were encouraged to look up best practices, such as the North American Vexillological Association’s Good Flag, Bad Flag: How to Design a Great Flag.
The report gives recommendations on how to make a flag both representative of, and recognizable for, its community.
This newer flag style can be seen in the proposals as Cleveland, Dayton and Salt Lake City have been considering redesigns of their city flags. Mississippi voters also adopted a new state flag design in 2020.
City Flag Design Rules
The Arts Commission and Toledo city officials published guidelines for the City of Toledo flag redesign that included the following:
- All submissions must be from a resident of the city of Toledo.
- Design elements should “reflect the City of Toledo’s shared history, values, aspirations and diverse cultural communities.”
- No lettering within the design.
- Two or three basic colors used in the design.
- All work must be original, not copyright material, and not created or enhanced by Artificial Intelligence.
