Final poster designs & rationale

Rationale

For this brief I decided to take the stand point of pro flag change, in the upcoming referendum. The concepts I chose to follow, were that of monarchial dominance over the New Zealand culture and also the general confusion and identity crisis we face as a nation if we do not take advantage of this opportunity to change our flag. While researching various countries, in order to find other flags similar to New Zealand's (other than Australia) I stumbled across many more of what I call 'sub-flags' usually representing states in countries such as America and Australia. These discoveries confirmed the original spot-the-difference concept I had with the Union Jack flags as a good lead to follow. Finding more only emphasised the rhetoric for my argument, the notions of Ihi I wanted to portray with the "Unique? New Zealand." image is an overwhelming, invasive amount of British colonial symbolism, combined with confusion to hopefully evoke a feeling of lost identity. Using metonymy with the black and white in this poster, echoed by the Maori flag makes the choice for a potential new design obvious and clearly unique. My 2nd final poster alludes to a similar dominance by the British commonwealth, this time homaging the famous American Gadsden flag which was designed to represent independence. The scale of the Kiwi bird to the stomping shoe is intended to create a feeling of belittlement amongst true New Zealanders. After becoming a dominion in 1907, I believe New Zealand is long overdue for a change of flag and if we become a republic, the flag will be changed regardless of the referendum, so why not do it now where we can all chip our two cents in. Using a bold yellow and contrasting dark colours, a pastiche of traditional poster designs the Ihi of this final poster I believe to be action, revolution and quite a powerful metaphor of "Don't tread on our identity". The poster speaks for itself, but for audiences with an interest in historical revolution and/or flags in general, this should be even more persuasive and effective.