By Michael Bryan
You might note that we have made a slight alteration to the site banner. We are now acknowledging the de facto split between Baja and Alto Arizona. Of course, the split is not yet de jure, and may never be, but we thought it time to recognize that Baja and Alto are two different states of mind, if not two different states. Yet. Until the people of Baja have a chance to voice their choice through a non-binding referendum on continued union with Alto, our new banner will fly.
You can learn more about the movement to create Baja Arizona south of the Gila at the movement's Facebook Page, or their new homepage, StartOurState.com.
We thought it might be fun to ask BlogFor(Baja&Alto)Arizona.com readers to help design our new State Flag. The mock-up they have on the banner at StartOurState.com isn't exactly inspired.
Basically, just Arizona's flag inverted and with the pizzaz drained out of it. We'd like to see what you come up with. So we are going to have a little contest.
Please submit your designs, or design ideas (we don't expect everyone to be a graphic designer) to BlogForArizona@gmail.com with the subject line 'FLAG CONTEST' (or something reasonably similar) by June 1st, 2011 and our staff, in consultation with the leaders of the Start Our State movement, will select a winner.
A prize? You want a prize as well as the honor of designing the flag of the 51st state? Sheesh. OK. The winner gets their very own BlogForArizona.com bumper sticker. If you want to donate additional incentives to the eventual winner, we're open to that, too. Let us know what you want to pony up for the contest winner and we'll add it to the kitty.
Here are some resources to get you started and help you make your design not suck: NAVA (the North American Vexillological Association) has a good site on flag design; Design My Own Flag has a nifty online doodad for making mockup flags; and, of course, Wikipedia has a nice entry on vexillology. Get designing!