New Hampshire’s flag – the round state seal featuring the U.S.S Raleigh floating on the ocean with the sun in the background – all set on a lovely shade of blue is certainly iconic in these parts.   

In somewhat of a shock to longtime Granite Staters, not everyone sees as much beauty and symbolism in the flag as we do. (By way of trivia, the Raleigh, built at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is said to be the first ship to fly the Stars and Stripes, although that’s been debated.)

New Hampshire Public Radio reported that the North American Vexillological Association asked visitors to its website to rank the 72 state and territorial flags in the United States and Canada. Sure enough, New Hampshire came in at the bottom.

New Hampshire ranked 63rd, lumped in with a mess of flags from New York, Virginia, Nevada, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Utah, Maine, Oregon, Michigan, Vermont, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, Kansas and Nebraska, just to name a few. All of these state flags have one thing in common: They feature their state seal plopped on a blue background. 

How drab.

Interestingly, NHPR’s education outreach and education producer Nick Capodice asked Tom Mungovan’s Graphic Design class at the Concord Regional Technical Center if they could come up with something more visually pleasing. 

They were guided by the five basic principles of flag design:

Keep it simple 

Use meaningful symbolism

Use 2 to 3 meaningful symbols

No lettering or seals

Be distinctive

What came back was full of color and imagination. 

Take a look below at the designs the students came up with and tell us what you like best. Of course, if you like New Hampshire’s flag just the way it is, that’s okay too.  

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