Minnesota’s new state flag should feature an eight-pointed North Star against a dark blue background shaped like the state, with a solid light blue field at the right, a special commission decided Tuesday as it picked a replacement for an older design that many Native Americans considered offensive.

The State Emblems Redesign Commission chose the final version on an 11-1 vote after finalizing a new state seal that depicts a loon, the state bird. Unless the Legislature rejects them, the new flag and seal will automatically become official April 1, 2024, when Minnesota observes Statehood Day.

The star echoes Minnesota’s state motto of “Star of the North.” The commission’s chairman, Luis Fitch, said that to him, the light blue represents the Mississippi River, “the most important river in the United States,” pointing to the North Star. But he acknowledged it could mean other things to other people. Symmetry and simplicity won out over other versions, including ones that included a green stripe for the state’s agricultural heritage.

  • @harmsy
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    2611 months ago

    I just looked it up out of curiosity, and Minnesota’s old flag is boring and generic AF. It was a member of the “state seal on blue” club.

    • Echo Dot
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      fedilink
      111 months ago

      As a general rule you should be able to roughly represent the flag in 10 seconds in MS paint using only the pencil tool. If you can’t, it’s a bad flag.

      This flag you can do that the old one with the seal is terrible and you definitely couldn’t because it looks like every other terrible state flag, with a seal.