Design · Community

The village flag of Kippford

Kippford is a sailing village on the Solway coast. The community ran a competition for a village flag, so I designed one, and the design was adopted.

Context: Community flag competition, Kippford, Scotland
Role: Sole designer
Period: 2022 to 2023
Status: Adopted, in use

The adopted flag: a sky blue upper half and navy lower half separated by three white wavy lines, with an orange crest at the centre carrying the name Kippford and a white sailboat. — The adopted design. The name and the sailboat sit on a crest over the water, and the wavy lines carry across the full width so the flag still reads when it is moving.

The brief

A flag has to read at a distance, in motion, and from both sides, which pushes the design towards a few flat colours and simple geometry. It also has to feel like it belongs to the place, which for Kippford means the water and the boats.

The iterations

I worked through eleven numbered proposals across three families: the crest over water, a set of geometric designs using a wading bird and a ship's wheel, and a rounded cross device. The adopted design was proposal four, from the crest family.

An early crest proposal: a shield with a cyan and orange quartered field under a Kippford banner, centred on wavy white lines between sky blue and navy. — The crest family, here with a quartered shield before the sailboat replaced it.

A geometric proposal: a pale saltire dividing blue, navy and sand triangles, with a white gull on the left and a white sailboat on the right. — The geometric family, dividing the field with a saltire and placing a bird and a boat in the quarters.

A proposal with a large rounded white cross device centred on a field of sky blue over navy. — The cross family, built around a single rounded device instead of a pictorial crest.

A busier crest proposal: the quartered shield carrying a wading bird and a ship's wheel in the quarters, over the wavy lines. — The crest pushed further, with the bird and the ship's wheel worked into the quarters.

A dark geometric proposal: black and orange triangles meeting at the centre, with a blue wading bird on the left and an orange ship's wheel on the right. — A darker geometric variant, with the bird and the wheel on black fields.

A proposal placing the rounded white cross device over the three wavy lines, between sky blue and navy. — The cross device over the waves, part way between the two families.

Where it went

The design was adopted by the community and the flag now flies.

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