The Great California Bear Flag Hunt

As you have probably noticed, my website logo is based on the design of the California state flag, the Bear Flag. The creation of this logo has not been as simple as it may seem.

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The underlying meaning of this Bear Flag logo is twofold. I am quite proud of my state, California, the Golden State. Despite its infestation by granola ingredient residents: fruits, nuts, and flakes, it is the most beautiful, productive, and technically advanced place on Earth. And beyond the Bear Flag logo's demonstration of my affection for California, it is a not-so-subtle reminder of the original purpose of the United States Constitution- to form a more perfect union of sovereign states, of which California is the very best.

Once I had decided upon the Bear Flag as my logo, I needed only to find a suitable image of the Bear Flag and adapt it to my purpose. I would need to redo the lettering, and I considered changing the star from red to blue as an additional statement. But I refused to do this, being unwilling to cede this vibrant color to the communists. After all, the rebels at Sonoma used the red star before it had become a symbol of collectivist tyranny. But finding a suitable Bear Flag on the internet turned out to be not as easy as I had hoped. When I first designed my logo, I did not find any good Bear Flags, so I built my own.

I had the sneaking suspicion that my Bear Flag logo was itself not very accurate. Then, a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a California State web page which contained not only a better Bear Flag graphic, but also the actual language describing the Bear Flag. As I read this description, I realized that the Bear Flag graphic the state showed did not match the state's own language. And I saw that my own Bear Flag logo was woefully in error. My colors were off, and the lettering should have been dark brown instead of black. The colors on my new Bear Flag graphics are taken from a real Bear Flag, which I assume is accurate.

Even though the state's Bear Flag bear did not match the state's flag language, it was a much nicer design than I had created, so I decided to go ahead and use it in my logo. And I built a better bear for my actual Bear Flag graphics that I make available on my website. My Bear Flag graphics are subject to revision as I work on the design and figure out better ways to depict the bear.

Check back later, and you may find a better bear. And if anyone knows of a better Bear Flag graphic available on the web, I would appreciate getting the information.

Here is the actual language the state uses to describe the Bear Flag:

"As viewed with the hoist end of the flag to the left of the observer there appears in the upper left-hand corner of a white field a five-pointed red star with one point vertically upward and in the middle of the white field a brown grizzly bear walking toward the left with all four paws on a green grass plot, with head and eye turned slightly toward the observer; a red stripe forms the length of the flag at the bottom, and between the grass plot and the red stripe appear the words CALIFORNIA REPUBLIC.

Dimensions, excluding heading and unfinished flag ends: The hoist or flag width is two-thirds of the fly or flag length; the red stripe width is one-sixth of the hoist width. The state official flag hoist widths shall be two, three, four, five, six and eight feet. The diameter of an imaginary circle passing through the points of the star is one-tenth of the fly length; the distance of the star center from the hoist end is one-sixth of the fly length and the distance from the star center to the top of the flag is four-fifths of the star-center distance from the hoist end. The length of the bear diagonally from the nose tip to the rear of right hind paw is two-thirds of the hoist width; the height of the bear from shoulder tip vertically to a line touching the bottoms of the front paws is two-thirds of the hoist width; the height of the bear from shoulder tip vertically to a line touching the bottoms of the front paws is one-half the length of the bear; the location of the bear in the white field is such that the center of the eye is midway between the top and bottom of the white field and the midpoint of the bear's length is midway between the fly ends. The grass plot in length is eleven-twelfths of the hoist width and the plot ends are equidistant from the fly ends; the average width of the plot between the rear of the left front paw and the front of the right rear paw is one-tenth of the grass plot length. The height of the condensed gothic letters, as shown on the representation, is one-half of the red stripe width and they occupy a lineal space of two-thirds of the fly length with the beginning and ending letters of the words equidistant from the fly ends.

Colors:

The following color references are those of the Textile Color Card Association of the United States, Inc., New York; the colors on the flag are to be substantially the same as these color references. White--of the white field, front of bear's eye, and on the bear's claws is White, cable number 70001. Red--of the red stripe, the star, and the bear's tongue is Old Glory, cable number 70180. Green--of the grass plot is Irish Green, cable number 70168. Brown--of the bear is Maple Sugar, cable number 70129. Dark brown--of the bear outline, paws, shading, fur undulations, iris of the eye, the 12 grass tufts in the grass plot, and the letters is Seal, cable number 70108."

The state's website shows this as a representation of the Bear Flag:

If you take the trouble to check the details of this flag against the official description, you will find many errors.

The quality of the various examples of the Bear Flag used on the web ranges from fairly good to very poor. The best one I have found is a part of a graphic used on the state's home page:

Here are is collection of Bear Flag graphics that I have found on the web, demonstrating that while some web page designers go to quite a bit of trouble to accurately show the Bear Flag, others are willing to use very poor graphics indeed. I will omit the sources, to avoid embarrassing the guilty.

I have absolutely no idea why anyone would use graphics of such abysmal quality. These last representations are almost insulting to our fair state. Shame on you people!

Have a comment? Send to rsturge@inreach.com

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