If you visit Ted Kaye’s home in Portland, Ore., you just might find your state or hometown’s flag snapping in the breeze outside. Kaye, MBA ’79, has collected more than 300 flags from places he’s visited, and he takes pleasure in getting those flags out of storage and running them up the flagpole.
Technology executive Kaye is one of the country’s most active vexillologists—people who study flags—and he participates in the North American Vexillological Association as treasurer and editor of its scholarly journal, Raven. NAVA’s chief activity is connecting the country’s flag hobbyists, but it also has released rankings of American city and state flags, based on polls from its members and the general public. The simplest designs fare the best, while those relying on text or complicated graphics receive poor marks. The rankings have provoked strong reactions, especially in places commended or condemned for their flag. Former governors Jesse Ventura of Minnesota and Mike Huckabee of Arkansas denounced NAVA after their respective state flags were panned.
Arkansas and Minnesota are certainly not alone; Kaye asserts that “we are surrounded by bad flags.” That’s why he compiled a NAVA guide called Good Flag, Bad Flag: How to Design a Great Flag. When Georgia decided to redesign its state flag (a last-ranked example of what NAVA calls “seal on a bedsheet” flags, with a busy official logo imposed over a blue background), it provided members of the flag redesign committee with Good Flag, Bad Flag. The result? A simple, distinctive flag that Georgia voters supported 3 to 1 in a 2004 referendum, and an affirmation of the tasteful design values advocated by what Kaye affectionately calls “the lunatic fringe of the flag community.”
—JOHN MAAS, ’08
