CLE Flag Project to Unveil Winning Design for New Cleveland Flag | Cleveland

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CLE Flag

The three finalists and the current flag

The CLE Flag Project, a civic effort organized by a group of Cleveland-area volunteers, launched this spring with a simple mission: To come up with a new, modern city flag, one that more closely matched Cleveland’s current ethos.

That process started with an open call for submissions from Northeast Ohio, garnering 570 designs. It continued with a ten-member committee that whittled down that mountain of ideas to three finalists that were put up for a public vote against the city’s original and current official flag.

Now, after three months of voting and some 11,000 votes cast, the group is almost ready to unveil the winning design, one that won’t be officially adopted by the City of Cleveland but one that they hope will serve as a People’s Flag of Clevelad, flown and supported by residents.

But Cleveland will have to wait a few more weeks to see which one of the three submissions for a new flag won.

“The big part of this project was to make sure we end up with something that can be embraced by the commuity and does get embraced by the community,” CLE Flag member Brian Lachman told Scene. “So in the next month we’re taking time reaching out to businesses and people to see if they’ll fly the flag on the unveil date.”

In addition to having 100-200 flags immediately available to unfurl on the date around the city, CLE Flag is also partnering with local apparel companies to have shirts and hats ready for sale with portions of the proceeds going to the Cleveland Food Bank. However, the new flag will be also free to download and do with it what you wish. It is the People’s Flag, after all.

More than 73% of respondents who voted opted for one of the new three designs as opposed to the OG flag, which was approved by Cleveland in 1896 and designed by Susan Hepburn, an 18-year-old art school graduate whose submission to a contest sponsored by The Plain Dealer gained the admiration of the selection committee, which praised its “power and simplicity.”

Which wasn’t a surprise to the group.

“When we were getting word out initially, the feedback was either people didn’t know we had a flag or thought we could have a better one,” Lachman said.

And all 17 wards, Lachman noted, voted for the same new flag.

At the onset, CLE Flag had imagined lobbying the city to officially adopt the new design. That idea has come and gone. The two will live side by side — one modern, one old; one that hangs on front porches, one that hangs in City Hall. But the effort has gotten a measure of support from Cleveland’s government.

“The People’s Flag stands as a testament to the unity, passion, and shared identity of our communities, further showcasing their deep-rooted pride for Cleveland,” a city spokesperson said in a release on behalf of Chief of Staff Bradford Davy. “We honor the diverse ways in which residents actively engage in their civic responsibilities, with each person contributing in their own meaningful way. I commend the dedication and passion of the community that has fueled this movement.”

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