| Description |
"The Sego Lily Flag - red variant This flag uses simple geometric form to richly evoke Utah, both physically and metaphorically. Its design elicits three distinct viewings: an abstraction of the geography of the state, a scene expressing Utah's natural beauty, and an illustration of one our most cherished symbols. Geographically, at center is the Beehive State's Industry, its city lights rendered as a cell of honeycomb. At left, two blue fields top and bottom depict the Great Salt Lake and Utah Lake, with the white sands of the salt-rich desert to the west. At right, the snowy peaks of the Wasatch and Uinta ranges rise. Finally, the state is symbolically anchored to the blue of the union in the east. A second readily visible interpretation of the design is the central gold feature as the sun, rising into a partly cloudy sky over a snowy mountain and a lake. Most simply and most importantly, these forms coalesce into a rendering of Utah's state flower, the sego lily, embedded in the blue field of the union. It stretches its characteristic three white petals out from a pollen-filled center that is fittingly chiseled into the shape of honeycomb. If the state is interested in attributing further meaning to a design, one optional possibility is to state that the three white petals represent the three groups of people who have forged the state and still share it. That is: its indigenous tribes, the community established by the pioneers, and the new arrivals contributing to its diversity and dynamism. This variant of the flag includes three red stripes at the base of the petals that are also characteristic of the sego lily in nature. This addition can represent the native peoples of Utah in general or the three major areas of reserved land in the state. It could also represent the blood of the three groups mentioned above. At an aspect ratio of ~1.73:1, the geometric pattern becomes a tiling of regular hexagons, but the flag's aesthetic is effectively maintained at a wide range of ratios (including the 5:3 submitted, which is within 3% of the natural ratio). The Sego Lily Flag is simple to correctly mark out on any rectangular medium using only a straightedge, with no additional templates or measurements required. The top and bottom points of the honeycomb cell are at the midpoint of the flag width, and its two vertical edges are at exactly one quarter and three quarters of the flag width. Following the two diagonals of the flag then yields the four vertices in the interior: they sit at the four points where a diagonal crosses either the one-quarter or three-quarters vertical. (They are also where the two main diagonals intersect lines drawn between the midpoints of of the flag edges to make a diamond). The outer extent of the red bands can also be determined purely with a straightedge. Draw a line from where the petal touches a corner of the flag to the midpoint of another edge of the central hexagon such that it passes through the petal. Then extend an adjacent side of the central hexagon until the two lines intersect. This is the edge. If a second point is needed for precision in making the edges parallel to the hexagon's sides, the previous step can be done twice for the left petal. For the two right petals, a second point is found by drawing two horizontal lines across the central hexagon to make a rectangle. Then draw two angled lines connecting the vertices of the two right petals (north to southeast and northeast to south). A vertical line drawn through the two resulting intersection points will meet the outer edge of each red band precisely at the top and bottom of the flag. Colors: Legacy Gold (RGB 251, 178, 23 as specified in a prior commemorative flag bill). A lighter gold of RGB 255, 204, 51 might also be suggested. Old Glory Blue (no official RGB match, here using 0, 40, 104) White (RGB 0 0 0) [University of Utah] University Red (RGB 204, 0, 0) Note - the small gray border is not part of the design but is provided for ease of viewing the sample on media that use a pure white background. An off-white may be chosen for the design if this is perceived to be an issue going forward." |
