New Zealand’s new flag

New Zealand’s Flag Consideration Panel revealed the four flag designs to replace the country’s current one that eligible voters will rank in the first binding postal referendum this year.

The Flag Consideration Panel names four alternative flags for referendum ranking to choose the new New Zealand flag.

The four designs are: Silver Fern (Black & White), designed by Alofi Kanter from Auckland; Silver Fern (Red, White and Blue), designed by Kyle Lockwood, originally from Wellington; Koru, designed by Andrew Fyfe from Wellington; Silver Fern (Black, White and Blue), also designed by Kyle Lockwood.

Flag Consideration Panel chair, John Burrows, said the Panel’s decision had been guided first and foremost by the results of its engagement programme across a range of communities where thousands of Kiwis shared what was special about New Zealand, as well as the Panel’s own selection criteria.

He stressed the importance of designs being unmistakeably from New Zealand, timeless, free of any copyright or intellectual property issues and with the ability to work in a variety of contexts.

“Interestingly, reviewing the flag designs long listed in detail and in real-life contexts helped shape the Panel’s decision making. For example, there are practical matters such as how they look from a long distance, how they look from both sides, when flying (or still), in situations where they may hang vertically, and so on.

It would have also been easy to take a category based approach to our selection, for example have a silver fern option, a Southern Cross option, a koru option and an abstract or kiwi option. However, our mandate was to select what we believe to be the strongest flag designs, with the best symbol and colour combination that work well in any context from celebration to commemoration. We have made the decision to include one of the designs (by Kyle Lockwood) in two colour combinations, because they say different things to different people,” said Burrows.

The four alternative flags revealed by the Flag Consideration Panel

Andrew Fyfe, Koru. "As our flag unfurls, so too does its koru. The koru represents the fern frond, but is also reminiscent of a wave, a cloud, and a ram’s horn. In Māori kowhaiwhai patterns the koru represent new life, growth, strength and peace, and for this reason has taken a special place in Aotearoa’s visual language"

Kyle Lockwood, Silver Fern (Black, White and Blue). "The silver fern: A New Zealand icon for over 160 years, worn proudly by many generations. The fern is an element of indigenous flora representing the growth of our nation. The multiple points of the fern leaf represent Aotearoa’s peaceful multicultural society, a single fern spreading upwards represents that we are all one people growing onward into the future. The bright blue represents our clear atmosphere and the Pacific Ocean, over which all New Zealanders, or their ancestors, crossed to get here. The Southern Cross represents our geographic location in the antipodes. It has been used as a navigational aid for centuries and it helped guide early settlers to our islands"

Kyle Lockwood, Silver Fern (Red, White and Blue). "The dominant feature of this flag is a white fern frond that sweeps up diagonally from the bottom left corner to the right of the top centre. The left side of the fern is sitting on a red background. To the right of the fern there are four stars in the formation of the Southern Cross constellation, sitting on a blue background. Each star is red with a white border, and has five points"

Alofi Kanter, Silver Fern (Black & White). "The fern has been a distinctive symbol of New Zealand for the past 100 years. Strong and simple, it represents our uniqueness as Aotearoa New Zealand and the black and white colours show our ‘yin and yang’, with the softly curved spine of the frond binding us all together as a young, independent and proud nation"

New Zealand’s new flag

New Zealand’s Flag Consideration Panel revealed the four flag designs to replace the country’s current one that eligible voters will rank in the first binding postal referendum this year.

Latest on News

Latest on Domus