Rating the 10 finalists for Illinois' state flag.

[VIDEO] This video was published to YouTube last month before voting started for a new IL state flag. And the guest on this segment - Ted Kaye of the North American Vexillological Association takes a look at the designs for a future state flag.

He notes that the states of Utah, Minnesota, and Mississippi most recently had adopted new state flags and all of those flags were discussed by Kaye on this segment. Mississippi broke the rule of not having words on a flag though allowed this was more or less a political or historic compromise.

I think his views on the state flags designs are semi-similar to mine and I slept on (the wild-card) that I think could make a great flag. The one you see in the screen cap the very top left corner - almost a true tricolor with the white space that is shaped as the letter I - the letter I is for Illinois :P. And I feel as if this could be the most American design possible.

The Wild Card design

Kaye doesn't like the idea of using the Chicago star - the six-point star which is seen on the City of Chicago flag. The red stripes could represent the shape of the western border of Illinois and I see that a little bit.

I would tweak this design. Instead of the single Chicago star we could use the blue space as a field of 21 stars that represents Illinois as the 21st state. The I in the middle and then the red stripes to. Could be one idea although Kaye wouldn't consider this flag a contender.

As far as where our choices align probably three out of four with one wildcard design. Which you can see on this post from earlier this month.

At the very least his criticisms of those designs are basically do something with the white spaces, more simplified designs such as remove some extra stripes, a most stylized silhouette of Illinois as opposed to a precise drawing of the state. There should be no seal on our state flag also. And if you use stars they should be visible although no need for one star to be larger than the others.

Now the simplest design he looked at the economical flag with the state seal with the blue and red stripes on either side of the state seal. His main critique is perhaps find a way to make the eagle stand out but the other elements of the seal needs to go. That's something a good designer could work with.

Similar to the current state flag

Again I've already written my critique of this design and again there are some things we could do with this flag to make it better though perhaps it's not so ecomonical if we have to tweak some aspects of this flag.

Here are all the designs that are up for vote to Illinois residents. Do you have a favorite design. Have you voted yet?

If you haven't, vote here!

As an extra read check out this Sun-Times article on designing a new state flag.

ALSO: My favored rejected designs for the Illinois state flag