A citizen-led campaign to redesign the City of Tulsa flag presented its three finalists Wednesday.
About 400 designs were submitted, and more than 600 people responded to a survey to help guide those designs.
"The question we found to be most productive in providing the best input was, 'What event in Tulsa's history is most important?'" said Joey Wignarajah. "In any good flag, so much of what makes it important is the narrative behind it. When you look at the American flag, all of us learned the importance of the American flag."
Elements of each flag nod to Native American heritage, oil, Art Deco, the Tulsa Race Riot and the Arkansas River.
An independent panel made up of designers, architects and other experts narrowed the field down to the three finalists.
"We had all ends of the spectrum. We had a bunch of kids submitting. We had some nonprofessional artists submitting cool ideas, and then a lot of professional artists who you could tell spent a lot of time not only with the designs, but the thought behind the design," said Jacob Johnson.
Votes via text will be taken for the next two weeks.
"The service that we've licensed and that we're using only allows one vote per person, so if you try to then vote again, it'll send you a message to let you know," Johnson said.
The winner must be formally adopted by the city council and mayor. Unlike the current flag, the new flag would be under a Creative Commons license so anyone may use it for any purpose.
Johnson and Wignarajah said they plan to get the winning design as their first tattoos.
