Chicago Tonight: Cook County's flag to get a new look

Current Cook County Flag

This would legit fall in line with regards to civic symbols. Although perhaps not as important as either the state or the city of Chicago, how many of us think of Cook County having a flag. Many of us have to pay our property tax to them yearly and then of course we may have to do some business with the county court system especially if we have to do jury duty.

Anyway if I was still in school, I wouldn't mind trying to compete in this contest. If this was the 1990s probably would be using crayons to design a new flag, I can only wonder if our more creative students use photoshop to design new flags now.

Chicago Tonight has a bit more if you click the link you will see the finalized designs announced on Thursday.

This county standard has flown forlornly beside its snazzier local, state and national counterparts ever since it was adopted back in 1961. But that’s about to change.

Officials announced a re-design competition in 2019, and while the process stalled during the pandemic, it has picked up steam once again.

Six student-led designs have been chosen as finalists, whittled down from 23 semi-finalists, which were themselves plucked from the nearly 300 original submissions. Each semi-finalist was assigned a design mentor to help hone their idea; occasionally students were paired up if their concepts were similar.

The design brief was to create “an inclusive representation of Cook County, the rich diversity of its residents, the beauty of its landscape, the innovation of its institutions, and the pride of its history.”

Guidelines were also shared from the North American Vexillological Association, which notes that a flag should be simple and easily memorized, use meaningful symbolism, have two or three basic colors, have no lettering or seals, and should be distinctive while using similarities in other flags to show connections.

Are there any designs that you might like to see as the county's flag?