Bit of a flutter

The PM has promised a new flag by the end of next year .... at least he's promised us a process to get there anyway. Front runner looks to be the silver fern but a range of Gordon Walters' rip-offs have also been thrown in the ring. The chief Walters-like product has been served up by Michael Smythe who promotes what he calls my "Walters’ Koru flag". This is probably not the approach you'd take if Gordon Walters were still alive but you can check out Smythe's ‘Walters’ flag in various colour palettes here. The Taucetione blog is rather more restrained with its Walters’ kinship claims suggesting that its koru flag is “inspired” by the paintings. Pattern Recognition on the other hand goes head-on design-wise by reducing the famous Walters koru to “highlights”. Still, the Walters Prize goes to S Grundwell who has converted the Walters koru design into something that looks like a bunch of glove puppets shaking hands. Maybe the fern is not so bad after all.

Images: top to bottom, Smythe, Taucetione, Pattern Recognition and S Grundwell. More than you need to know about the New Zealand flag and possible changes to it here.