^{This page is part of © FOTW Flags Of The World website}

Cedar Rapids, Iowa (U.S.)

image by António Martins-Tuválkin, 19 February 2008

Description of the flag

See also:

Description of the flag

The NAVA image at http://www.nava.org/Flag%20Design/City%20Survey%202004/city_flag_photos/CedarRapids.jpg as depicted by Kaye (2004), shows a white 3:5 flag with a dark blue line draw logo showing local landmarks inside three overlapping ring outlines, above a slender motto scroll (too small to read) and centered bold dark red serif capitals readings "Cedar Rapids" above and "Iowa" below.

The central building on the flag logo seems to be the Cedar Rapids City Hall (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Cedar_Rapids_City_Hall.jpg); the photo seems to show only two flag poles in from of it. In spite of the “postcard” nature of the flag, showing local cityscape, it lacks the Tree of Five Seasons, "a three-dimensioned version of the city's logo", as said in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedar_Rapids#Landmarks: "the name "Five Seasons" and representations of the sculpture appear in many forms" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Oneshot.jpg: it is a five-pointed down-pointing round-tipped asterisk (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Logo_cr.gif. I'm very surprised it doesn't show on the flag. (Actually I'd expect the flag to show it and nothing more!) What's the story? Was the logo and all the hype around it created after the flag was adopted, and nobody though
of changing the flag? If so, it seems to show this flag as a semiotic failure and hint to its irrelevancy. Or else a very curious case of symbolic coexistence — one which is not unheard of when a fancy logo and/or CoA co-exist with an unrelated and graphically simple flag (usually older), but unexpected when the flag in question is itself logographic in its contents.
António Martins-Tuválkin, 19 February 2008