Minnesota Narrows New State Flag Options to 3 Designs

The Minnesota State Emblems Redesign Commission met yesterday and narrowed the nominees for the official state flag design from 6 to 3.

The commission was tasked with Developing and adopting a new design for the official state flag and the official state seal no later than January 1, 2024. All submissions were due by October 30th, according to the commission, "More than 2,600 designs were submitted for the new Minnesota state flag and seal during the public submission period."

During a meeting yesterday, the commission heard from the artists behind all the designs, including John Muller, he was born in Mankato, but now lives in Texas and made the trip to Minnesota to speak about his design. “The North Star is one of the brightest stars in the sky. It’s used for navigation, it serves as a guiding light. It leads the way, I think these are some of the features that exist in Minnesota as well,” he said.

The 3 final designs all feature the north star and generally all have the same colors, blue, white, green, and yellow. The commission even had some mockups of the flags on display to give members and the public a better idea of the finished product.

The commission has a little over two weeks to decide on the final design, they are scheduled to meet again on Friday from 1 PM to 5 PM, and maybe a final decision will be made at that meeting.

A new Minnesota State seal was approved by the commission last week, the selected design will go through a few design modifications before it becomes official. The seal prominently features a loon, something missing from the flag designs.

The artist behind the new seal design (seen below) says, "This emblem features the state bird in a pose that signifies pride and energy. The waves symbolize our abundance of lakes. The wild rice, our state grain, represents the agriculture of today and of Native American tribes. The pine trees represent our forests and land. 19 stars fill the sky to represent MN as the 19th state to join the union after the original 13. The large North Star represents Minnesota. Elements."