The primary objective of the NZFlag.com Trust is to promote debate about changing the New Zealand flag. While we have designed a flag for the campaign, we are not promoting it as the successor to the existing blue ensign. Our flag is a flag for change and debate. It stimulates response and discussion.
New Zealand's new flag will not be chosen by the NZFlag.com Trust, but by others. The Trust's aim is to promote change.
'New Designs' is a section of the website which will introduce new flag designs which arise during the debate process. There have been numerous worthy alternative designs for the New Zealand flag produced over a long period of time. They all have a place to play in the debate process. Some are worthy of consideration during the later process of deciding which flag should be put to a second referendum as an alternative to the existing New Zealand flag.
However, this section only highlights new designs which have arisen during the debate stimulated by NZFlag.com, which we think deserve special consideration. Clearly there are many other designs which people have put forward, which also deserve respect and consideration, which we are not highlighting for reasons of space and a need to keep the site as focused as possible.
Flag Design: Land of the Long White Cloud
I
was born in the Wairarapa in the 50's and now live in Breaker Bay, Wellington.
I have been a freelance illustrator / designer since
graduating from Wellington Design School in the 70's.
Flag Design: Silver Fern Night Sky
Flag Design: The Waves
Flag Design: Silver Fern
Flag Design: Stars
Dick
Frizzell was born in Auckland in 1943 and graduated from the Ilam School
of Art in 1964. Dick Frizzell began his career as a 'renegade pop artist'
in the 1970s (Sarah Stuart, 'Art Adventure', Sunday Star Times, 31 July
1994). His work has always been characterised by a highly skilled handling
of paint and an endlessly inventive range of subject matter and styles:
faux-naive New Zealand landscapes, figurative still-lifes, comic book
characters and witty parodies of modernist abstraction. His taste is conveniently
broad and he has a penchant for fondly remembered and well-worn cliches.
There is also in his work a sense of exuberance, ironic humour and a baby-boomer
nostalgia. An anti-traditionalist, Frizzell often makes a deliberate effort
to mix up the categories of high and low art - poking fun at the intellectualisation
of 'high art' and the existential angst of much New Zealand painting in
the art culture of his youth. Art critic Justin Paton has described him
as 'New Zealand's laureate of levity - a self-styled 'happy normal' painter'
(Justin Paton, Listener, March 15, 1997).
Frizzell's background is in advertising. He has worked as an animator, commercial artist and illustrator and has no qualms about blurring the categories between his commercial work and art. His paintings are often a pastiche of images drawing on modern art and graphic design. The first of his series to gain recognition was based on the colourful labels that appeared on cans of fish. It was their very ordinariness and the straightforward presentation of these labels that attracted Frizzell. They had all the elements he wanted in his art: bright colours, formal lettering and a one-shot image of the product. In his attachment to advertising he can be thought of as following in the tradition of artists such as Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol both of whom have either drawn on advertising directly or used fragments of commercial typography in their work.
Frizzell has exhibited since the late 1970's. His works are held in all of the main public and corporate collections throughout New Zealand. He has also completed a number of major commissions including works for Sky City Casino (Auckland) and the painting of an Ansett New Zealand aeroplane for Starship Children's Hospital. In 1997 a retrospective exhibition of his work, Dick Frizzell: Portrait of a Serious Artiste was toured nationally to all of the public art galleries in the main centres.
Flag Design: Unity
Flag Design: As One
Peter Haythornthwaite trained in fine arts and design [Industrial] at
the University of Auckland, and the University of Illinois.
He worked for the New York office of Henry Dreyfuss, the famous pioneer American designer, and for Designworks USA [now a part of BMW]. He returned to New Zealand to take up a position teaching graphic and product design at the University of Auckland.
In 1979 he formed PeterHaythornthwaiteDesign, arguably New Zealand’s most respected multi-disciplinary consultancy. His clients included New Zealand corporates, and many SMEs as well as clients in the USA, Japan and England. Peter has received many national and international design awards. In 2003 he was the recipient of The John Britten Award for outstanding achievement in design.
Peter has a high interest in design based entrepreneurship. He has developed a number of design based companies including artifakts, a desk accessory manufacturer - its products being sold in design stores in Japan, Germany, Holland, England, Australia and the United States. artifakts was the first NZ company to have its products in the store Museum of Modern Art, New York; it has been the recipient of export and international awards.
He has been a guest lecturer in many Universities, including California’s Art Centre College of Design, and has actively participated in design organisations and design conferences. He has served two terms as President of DINZ. His work has been extensively and internationally published.
Currently he is the owner of creativelab, a research and development
design office focused on joint venture projects, a partner in Equip [design
integration consultancy], and adjunct professor of design at Victoria
University, Wellington. He was co-author of the Industry New Zealand Design
Scoping Review and a member NZTE’s Design Task Force.
Flag Design: The Long White Cloud
Turi Park is Creative Director for Native Limited, a creative services
company. Native has grown around Turi's skills and interests: on a foundation
of classical training he has built a strong repertoire in brand strategy
development, as well as sophisticated photo and typo-graphics. Following
extensive offshore experience, he has come home to a small team and the
New Zealand natural environment. Turi is also growing a reputation for
speaking out about the "cultural responsibilities" of the New
Zealand creative industries. In his spare time Turi can be found running
dogs on beaches, searching out wild places or designing the covers for
Tinity Roots albums.
Flag Design: Stylised Silver Fern
Flag Design: New Southern Cross
Cameron Sanders resides under a 110 year old mighty Kauri, where cones
explode seasonally on the roof of the family home, in Days Bay Wellington.
Here he enjoys his passion, the bush, the sea and three energy-charged
children.
Cameron is a partner and creative director at Cato Partners and has been responsible for developing some of New Zealand's most recognisable identities - BankDirect, Te Papa, Virtual Spectator and recently, Wellington Airport. His work has been published in numerous books, including First Choice - Leading International designers select the very best of their own work and Cato Partners - Design by Thinking.
Flag Design: A New Zealand Flag
In September 2004, STUDIO, the student representative body of the Victoria
University Architecture and Design School ran a competition to design
a new flag for New Zealand. The judging was carried out by Peter Hume
and John Woollett, from Flagmakers of Thorndon and Robin Skinner, a lecturer
at the School of Architecture and Design. The winning entry was by Adam
Schroyen, a student of The School.
Adam Schroyen was born in Comox, a small town in Canada, in 1981 and immigrated aboard the family yacht "Nenuphar" at age of three to New Zealand, an experience he will no doubt never remember. Continued years living in the intimate 27ft space provided him with a strong appreciation for big stationary houses that perhaps influenced him to study architecture years later.
After spending his youth in small town Whangarei Adam eagerly moved to Wellington in 1999 to study Architecture at Victoria University. A year off from University in 2002 to explore his Canadian heritage gave him a renewed gratitude for the warm beaches and intimate scale of New Zealand, a place he proudly calls home.
Further travels to South America and Indonesia have helped reinforce an awareness that because 'you're unique just like everybody else', diversity can be a collective strength.
Adam will be completing his degree at the end of the year which will be followed by the traditional European OE.
Flag Design: Koru (after Walters)
Flag Design: Double Spiral
Michael Smythe's passion for identity may have something to do with being
an identical twin. As a professional industrial and graphic designer he
has been a strong advocate for New Zealand contributing its own fresh
'voice' to an increasingly homogenised world. Michael's New Zealand heritage
dates back to Major Cyprian Bridge of the 58th Regiment and to a 19 year
old German surveyor who arrived in Christchurch in 1876.
As a junior artist at National Publicity Studios in 1963, the year before starting at design school, Michael met Gordon Walters who ran the design studio at the Government Printing Office. Dialogue and correspondence over the years makes Michael confident that his flag design proposal honours Gordon Walters who was a graphic designer as well as an artist.
Michael is in partnership with Helen Schamroth as Creationz Consultants and, having recently completed a Master of Design Management is moving into design strategy as well as teaching design history to Bachelor of Product Design students.