Salt Lake City: Official Development News Thread - Part 5

[bob rulz]

I know it's overused but I think mountains are fine for Salt Lake City.

The two things that people think of most often when Salt Lake comes up are Mormons (or the temple specifically) and mountains.

[wrendog]

Literally zero of the flags did anything for me.

I feel like I would have designed something similar in my graphic arts class as a senior in high school in 1995.

[slc801]

The more I think about it, the more I love the flag with just a simple white bar above a blue bar. Its really quite clever in spite of being super simple, which makes for an excellent flag. It is unique to Salt Lake City, which is hard to say for the other flags. The others are relatively generic (mountains), use symbols that refer more to Utah than SLC (sego lily, honey/bee), or look to similar to other flags (the one that looks like Chicago).

An issue that I have with the flag is that it is blue, which can be problematic given that the U of U is such a huge part of SLC. But what if the U were to adapt the white and blue and integrate it a flag of their own? I was thinking something like Panama's flag, sans the stars and flip it horizontally (so red over white on the left, white over blue on the right). Colleges don't really have flags and if they do it is just their logo on it. It could be a way to reference both the U of U and that it is in SLC.

[Atlas]

I like the idea of the simple white and blue flag when you put it that way slc801, but it definitely isn't unique to Salt Lake. It's literally the flag of Bavaria.

[RC14]

^
Dang, you would think the city would have ran an image search or something before selecting it. Maybe they could turn it 90 degrees or something.
I was starting to love that design.

[Atlas]

A simple change would be to take the blue and white flag and make the delineation between the colors a "three mountain" profile instead of a flat line. Then it would be unique and still maintain its relative simplicity.

[UV4EVER]

I like your idea slc801. One idea that I was think of today was another way to make it more unique. What if you kept the blue bottom and white top and in the top left corner you had a red star with a circle around it. The red would symbolize the U of U. The star would symbolize that SLC is the capital city and the circle around the star would symbolize the olympic rings and that SLC hosted the olympics in 2002. Thoughts?

[bob rulz]

Originally Posted by wrendog

Literally zero of the flags did anything for me.

I feel like I would have designed something similar in my graphic arts class as a senior in high school in 1995.

Flags are supposed to be simple. Look up flags of countries. Most of them are just bars of colors. I don't know where this idea that flags have to be intricate came from.

That said, these flags still aren't very good. But ANY flag is one that a senior in high school should be able to come up with.

[RC14]

^
To your point, the Denver flag was literally designed by a high school student and it is considered one of the best US city flags.

[slc801]

Originally Posted by Atlas

I like the idea of the simple white and blue flag when you put it that way slc801, but it definitely isn't unique to Salt Lake. It's literally the flag of Bavaria.

I guess Im differentiating between unique and one-ok-a-kind. Im fine with it being the flag of Bavaria because it has a totally different meaning and context (according to Wikipedia, no one is totally sure how Bavaria's flag came to be). Most of the other proposed flags, with a bit of justification and history streching, could be a flag for any number of other cities in Utah or even the Intermountain West. White over blue is unique to SLC because it literally says Salt Lake and would be hard to justify for any other place. Sure, its what Bavaria has but given the how strongly it can tie to our city, I think we are fine using it without the presumption of copying.

[Orlando]

Could someone post some examples of good examples of flags of other cities?

[stayinginformed]

Originally Posted by Orlando

Could someone post some examples of good examples of flags of other cities?

https://flagpolesetc.com/blog/ten-be...-united-states

[bob rulz]

Originally Posted by Hatman

My Rio Grande proposal is finished!

Still a rough draft though, and I may have overdone it. 61 pages and 10,000 words (lots of pictures too!).

Anyway, here's the link for y'all to peruse it at your leisure - and as always, all feedback is highly appreciated.

(PDF Warning!)https://drive.google.com/file/d/10_N...ew?usp=sharing

I finally got around to checking this out and I absolutely love it. Since I just moved to the west downtown area, I can see first hand how the presence of the railroad tracks affects the walkability and urban fabric of the area and I can envision how this would help.

One of my questions would involve how the 600 West viaduct over the UP tracks (which I understand the need for) would affect walkability. That would have to remain a major pedestrian corridor to connect areas south to the Green Line, especially since there's such a major surge of apartments in the area and this proposal would only accelerate that. There's also 3 apartment complexes (soon to be 5!) and a handful of single-family homes (somehow still holding out) that are directly along the viaduct that would unfortunately get the short end of the stick in this proposal.

Also, if I have any suggestions for the document, I would recommend incorporating pictures of what the current land around Rio Grande looks like. For example, when you reference where the new stations will go, using comparative pictures of the current state of that area (like 500 West and Rio Grande Street where TRAX would go) would help people visualize how it could change.

Overall though this is a fantastic proposal, and I hope that you can get some actual important/influential people to look at it!

[RC14]

Originally Posted by Orlando

Could someone post some examples of good examples of flags of other cities?

Jackson, MS and New Orleans have good flags. Mesa's flag isn't terrible.

From the Building Salt Lake article:
THE FIVE PRINCIPLES OF GOOD FLAG DESIGN

A flag need not contain lettering or seals.
A flag should use no more than three colors.
A flag should be so simple a child can draw it from memory.
A flag should use meaningful symbolism.
A flag should be distinctive or related — it shouldn’t duplicate other flags but should use similarities to show connections.

[Comrade]

There are two problems with trying to create a new flag:

1) It's difficult to come up with an idea that fully represents Salt Lake that isn't generically something that could be used for a dozen-plus other cities. You could absolutely use mountains - but so could a lot of cities. So, then you've got to wonder what about Salt Lake stands out that can be represented on a flag? Surely the LDS heritage is unique but it's also divisive to the point that you can't have the Angel Moroni on it, right? Or an outline of the LDS Temple doubling as, say, peaks of a mountain. I like the honeybee, or beehive aspect because of its ties to the state, but it also can be a bit too cartoony, right? And frankly, a beehive or honeybee would be better suited for the state flag since the state is more known for that than Salt Lake City.

2) A lot of these flags take popular city flag ideas, like Chicago's, and repurpose their style into something more Salt Lakey. Which is okay in looks but it kind of defeats the purpose. The Chicago's four stars represent four major moments in its history: Fort Dearborn, which is now Chicago, the Great Chicago Fire, World's Columbian Exposition and the Chicago's Worlds Fair.

The problem with #2 is that if you pick that design and try to shoehorn in a reason for the amount of stars, it comes off as forced.

But I get it. We're years and years late on designing a flag, so, it's only natural to look at other flags.

So, maybe instead of focusing on stars and honeycombs, maybe instead do ... something like snowflakes?

The three snowflakes could represent the three major Salt Lake County ski resorts: Alta, Snowbird and Solitude. The snowflakes also tie into the old 'Greatest Snow on Earth' campaign and really Salt Lake, beyond Mormons, is known for snow, right?

Taking that really simple blue/white flag and...



idk

[ThePusherMan]

Unfortunately snowflakes have been ruined as a term because it’s now an insult used to “own the libs” and while highlighting skiing makes sense for the state it doesn’t make sense for the city. No skiing in the city. I do like the general idea of adding a little something to the blue and white flag to make it unique and I like the placing/spacing of the snow flakes. Got to think of something that references SLC specifically. Maybe references to different neighborhoods. I’ve always liked our neighborhood names. Rose Park (roses) Sugarhouse (Sugar) Marmalade (fruit/orchard). I feel like salt lake is both too far away from its origins to reference the past and not far enough along to know what really defines us. I think that’s why symbolism is tougher for SLC than it is for Utah.

[ThePusherMan]

Also someone on my Facebook feed photoshopped the flags to make them look like they are blowing in the wind on a flagpole and I’ll say that ALL of them look better this way. Even the flags I really dislike looked pretty good to me.

[bob rulz]

I like the idea of just having a star in the center of the blue/white flag to signify that we're the capital city. It's simple and elegant and easy to understand.

[RC14]

^
I think that's the best idea I've heard so far. I don't like the idea of adding anything to the blue and white flag because I feel like it would take away from the meaning. Instead of "Salt Lake" it would say "Salt Lake..also capital city"... but at the same time, I don't like the idea of sharing a flag with Bavaria and a star, I suggest a copper star, feels like a palatable compromise to me.

[Blah_Amazing]

Quick update from the Sugarmont Apartments website.
https://www.sugarmontapartments.com/

It now lists pre-leasing will begin August 2020 and move-ins in November 2020. This is updated from a few months ago, when the leasing had been moved back to '2021.' So whatever has been delaying the project over the past year seems to have finally been cleared up.