New flag for Raleigh is bold, symbolic and not boring. Backers hope it’s official.

A new flag being offered as Raleigh’s official symbol comes stamped with a sleek and majestic acorn — a bold, uncomplicated image that has long symbolized the City of Oaks.

It adds a splash of history with a zig-zagging row of diamonds pulled straight from Sir Walter Raleigh’s coat of arms.

And it flies in a field of “old glory red,” easily spotted, recognized and admired.

“I look at that,” said Danny Rosin, one of its proponents, “and I see something that’s iconic, something that’s visually appealing, something that’s powerful. It either connects you to something you’re already connected to or it makes you ask, ‘What is that? Why is that?’ “

A more daring face for Raleigh

In coming months, a collection of avid Raleighites will ask the city to officially adopt the red acorn design as its official symbol — not replacing the old, scarcely known Raleigh banner but nudging it aside for the sake of a more daring face.

It’s a safe bet that few Raleigh residents even realize the city has a flag, which it does. But to the new flag proponents, the old banner fails most of the basic principles of good flag design, looking cluttered and hard to make out from a distance.

The old one dates to 1899 , when the city commissioned a local artist to fashion a decorative gift for the warship USS Raleigh, which returned to Wilmington after service in the Spanish-American War.

But it wasn’t finished in time for the ceremony, and though nobly intended, the gift flag ended up in the city’s broom closet until it got rediscovered and officially adoption in 1960.

So to critics, it presents a jumbled image with its three-stripe design and a miniature version of city seal crammed in the middle, where its signature oak tree looks postage-stamp-sized and its script, “City of Raleigh, North Carolina,” is illegibly small.

Worse, the flag has a totally different image on its back side: Sir Walter’s coat of arms with a crest and motto presented in tiny script. A contemporary flag-maker would need to insert a third ply between the front and back to keep the designs showing through to the other side.

“The original designers didn’t intend for it to be a flag that we’d actually fly,” said Brian Rineer, another proponent of the new flag. “It just doesn’t work as an everyday thing people are going to fly.”

Anyone who’s ever attended a baseball game or a Veterans Day parade knows that people can take flags very seriously. But even the most ardent banner-wavers might not know how deep this star-spangled rabbit hole can go.

‘Good Flag, Bad Flag’

For instance, there is such a thing as vexillology that pertains to the history and symbolism behind flags, and The North American Vexillological Association safeguards a 16-page guidebook titled “Good Flag, Bad Flag.”

It spells out five principles, most of which Raleigh’s old flag violates:

▪ Keep it Simple

▪ Use meaningful symbols

▪ Two or three basic colors

▪ No letters or seals

▪ Be distinctive

In a recent Ted Talk , podcaster Roman Mars presents a lineup of city flags that break the rules even more flagrantly, especially San Francisco with its crudely drawn phoenix and its name written in giant capital letters.

“There is a scourge of bad flags,” Mars said, “and they must be stopped.”

Raleigh’s new flag backers offer a dozen examples of cities who’ve changed their minds, dropping their crowded, confusing designs for something punchier: Anaheim, California, or Lincoln, Nebraska.

Not only does Raleigh’s new design combine a nod to the heraldry of Raleigh’s past with a look to the streamlined acorn of its tech future, it salutes its longtime connection to the color red.

“Raleigh’s color has always been red,” Rineer said, noting the obvious Wolfpack and Hurricanes connection. “Durham’s is blue. Charlotte’s is green.”

And when backers make their case to the City Council, sometime this fall, they will likely post this question:

“How do you define a great brand?” Rosin asked. “To me, it’s will you wear it on your chest? I’m not wearing that old flag on my chest. This flag is what I want to wear on my chest when I go to Colorado.”