flag review
the current flag
When the Cleveland flag was designed 130 years ago, it wasn't unreasonable to represent the city using pictures of blacksmith tools and wooden ship equipment. A hammer, anvil and wheel to represent industry and an anchor, capstan and oars to represent maritime history. These six shapes are stacked on the flag, one atop the other, in two groups of three. The overlapped silhouettes makes identifying each individual shape difficult and virtually impossible when the flag is flown. It also makes the flag costly and labor intensive to reproduce.
The six items are often misidentified as symbols. They are not. A symbol has a learned meaning. It is a stand-in for another object or idea. These are icons—pictographic representations. The anvil on the flag means an anvil. Nothing more. With no underlying message or meaning, the current Cleveland flag is without symbolism.
Without meaningful symbolism, the flag does not stand for anything. It offers no opportunity for personal interpretation or emotional investment. The flag cannot function as a symbol of the city if the flag is not relevant to the city.
As proof of its failure to identify the city with symbols, the current flag is labeled with the city's name. If a flag has to be labeled, its symbolism has failed.
The tiny, inscrutable emblems of antiquity do disservice to Cleveland. A capstan cannot inspire civic pride in todays' Clevelanders. No one knows what it is. Neither can a wheel. The flag is slathered in antiques that have slipped out of the mainstream and into museums.
The current Cleveland flag is a relic of a bygone era. It offers no symbolic meaning for what Cleveland is today, or, more importantly, what Cleveland could be tomorrow. It provides no guidance or direction for the future.
Essentially, Cleveland’s current flag lacks hope.
And that is devastating to a city.
A flag needs symbolism that speaks to a city's shared history—events that made the city what it is. A flag must inspire. A flag is a banner under which people unite, regardless of race, age, gender or belief.
Cleveland’s current flag is a specter of yesterday, and Cleveland is haunted by its ghost. The flag cements Cleveland firmly in the past and robs it of its future. It says to the citizens of Cleveland, and the rest of the world, that there is nothing to look forward to—nothing to get excited about. That everything Cleveland has to offer it offered 130 years ago.
And that's not true. Cleveland is a remarkable city.
Cleveland deserves a flag that celebrates this proud, loyal and hard-working city.
View other Ohio city flags.
