On Being an Olympic City - A Five Point Series

An Olympic Host City needs to be World Class. And although we have world class men (a fine example of which is the handsome fellow above), we aren't truly a world class city that's ready to host the Olympics.

Our first concern, and the subject of today's first of five points, is that if Boston is actually chosen to host the Olympics our city flags will give the world a first impression that we're dull and unimaginative. We need a visual that people around the world will associate with us and be memorable. Currently, neither Boston nor Cambridge have anything close to well-designed flags.

What makes for a well designed flag? Check out this amazing and entertaining TED Talk video below! And then scroll down to see our current, and our HOTT Crews' proposed, city flags!

Below left is the Boston flag. Below right is the Cambridge flag. From the TED Talk flag expert you can quickly see that they are not well designed flags. Matter of fact, we'll be the laughing stock of a global audience should we host the Olympics with these flags. People from overseas seeing our city flags might even think we're in Mississippi instead of Massachusetts!

The Boston flag (above left) is dull and from a distance looks as if it's sporting a World War I battleship. The Cambridge flag (above right) looks as if someone spray painted the town logo on a car cover.

So our HOTT Crew offers a major redesign of our fair cities' flags to conform with good flag design, and proudly presents them below! Let us describe them for you!

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Our new Boston flag (above left) pays homage to the life sustaining fish which have been the lifeblood for everyone living here since time immemorial. We would have used a cod, but cod are OUF (One Ugly Fish). And vegans in Jamaica Plain would be loathe to have a real fish on a city flag. So we used a fun fish, Flounder from Disney's The Little Mermaid! The stars surrounding Flounder represent each Boston neighborhood and are blue to represent the sea.

And our new Cambridge flag (above right, and already copyrighted) recognizes two things people around the world think of when Cambridge, MA is mentioned: Harvard University (note the crimson bars) and Pahk the Cah at Havahd Yahd. And we maintained good flag design by not using any words! Our in house artist, Lola Matisse of Gloucester, will be tweaking our flags to ensure they're in proper flag-sized proportions.

We think our flags will be a fun addition to the flag poles at the Olympic Games, and, when flown all over the city will convey to people from around the world that we're not only world class, we're also fun!

Location: Red Line at Park
Imagined Profession: Vexillologist
Photographer: GB