Syracuse has had the same flag for over a century, but the non-profit organization Adapt CNY decided the flag doesn’t represent the city well enough and created the Flag Redesign Committee.
The public has been submitting their ideas for the new Syracuse flag over the past few weeks, and the submission window is closing soon. This committee is be responsible for reviewing the public's designs and deciding which one will be chosen.
Andrew Frasier from Adapt CNY said the city has already received over 100 submissions, and he knows there will be more.
“I know that, traditionally myself included, people tend to procrastinate, right?" Frasier said. "I think we’ve gotten the message out there pretty well. We’re pretty happy with the, you know, with kind of the feedback we’ve already gotten in the community.”
Frasier said that the committee didn’t send out any specific expectations for the design in order to foster more creativity.
“We really wanna leave it open to interpretation, different people," Frasier said. "I mean, everyone has a sort of different view of Syracuse, or, you know, what it means to them. But we did direct people to really follow the, there’s five guidelines to good flag design.”
Frasier said those guidelines follow five principles: keep designs simple, use meaningful symbolism, use two or three basic colors, stay away from lettering or seals, and be distinctive or related.
He said the committee plans to make its final decision on the design this summer.
“Our ultimate goal is to have a new recommended flag to offer the city of Syracuse’s Common Council in June. They have a meeting in June, but also they-hopefully right around Flag Day would be the goal,” said Frasier.
The deadline to turn in all flag design submissions to syracuseflag.com is 11:59 p.m. on February 17.
