Commonwealth Flag - Redesign for Australian National Flag and Govt. Departments
from /r/vexillology Top comment: **Description** I’ve been sitting on this design for a couple years now because I didn’t think anyone would care to see it but I showed it to my friends and they liked it so I thought it’s worthy of submitting. The current Australian flag means a lot to me, asylum seeker turned citizen, as it's the flag that gave me everything I have in life. So I approached this redesign with the utmost respect to the men and women who died fighting to protect Australia and Australian values under the current flag. My priority was keeping as much of flag the same as I could; therefore, the Southern Cross and the Federation Star are two core elements. **Why do we need a redesign?** We don't and I'm happy sticking with the current flag. Only reason I made this was to have green and gold in our National flag as I believe they're meaningful to every Aussie no matter their background. **Colours** The colours green and gold played a significant role in my upbringing. However, I remember watching the Australian Olympic Team during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and being confused as to why the colours of our uniforms were different to our flag. Other countries like the USA and Canada had the uniform colours match their flag but ours was different. Hence, the second requirement of a redesign was that the colours had to be green and gold which is easier said than done because the official shades are too bright so it took me a while to find ones that felt right to me. **Symbolism** *Commonwealth Star:* symbolising the Federation of Australia *6 State Badge:* from the Coat of Arms of Australia *5 Stars:* Southern Cross *St. Edward's Crown (Governor-General Flag):* Since 1952, two-dimensional representations of the crown have been used in coats of arms, badges, and various other insignia to indicate the authority of the monarch throughout the Commonwealth realms ([Source: scroll down to Heraldry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_symbols_of_England)). **Flag Variants** I originally planned to create custom flags for each of the above departments but soon realised that I'm not creative enough to come up with multiple different designs. Instead I replaced the colours of the flag with that of the departments. **Governor-General** Made this after seeing the flags of the Govenor-General of Australia and Canada - they're almost identical. Didn't know how to simplify St. Edward's Crown so I left it for their representatives to adjust. **Royal Air Force** Finding the right shade of blue for the Royal Air Force was a pain because the official one doesn't look good with my design. I admit the shade of blue it has now doesn't look that good but when you test it with the flag waver it's pretty nice ngl. **Red Ensign** I have no clue what a red version of a flag is used for but I saw that the current Australian flag has a red one so I made one too.
