So Minnesota will run it up the flagpole this spring: a new state banner discarding its previous official seal that many Native Americans found offensive. An added plus to the change is the ditching of a flag cliché employed by more than 20 other states, all centering their insignia on an uninspired solid blue background.

Here’s a salute, then, to the new design. There are reports that it has been greeted by much of the public with a sort of golf applause (polite but hardly raucous), a reminder that widespread opposition to any change is rampant in modern culture. Still, something is afoot here, with a handful of states either having recently re-worked their flags or commissioned a study to do so.

This has my attention as someone who might argue having been a vexillologist before that term for flag aficionado existed. I was in fifth grade in the late 1950s when I mimicked a version of the California state flag by drawing that cool brown bear on an old white bedsheet; it was at least a year later when an American scholar named Whitney Smith was credited with coining vexillology—combining the Latin vexillum (that referred to flags carried by Roman cavalry) with logia for “study.”

Let’s study Minnesota’s search for a redesign. A call for submissions in the fall brought more than 2,600 suggestions—from children’s drawings to professional mockups. They featured stars and loons (the state bird), water (“Land of 10,000 Lakes”) and trees. Plus, there were some not-really-serious (they weren’t serious, were they?) portrayals of the unofficial state bird, the mosquito, and of hot dish, Minnesota’s popular take of the casserole.

Given the sly rejoinder typical among Minnesotans regarding their embrace of the state’s wintry reputation—“It keeps the riff-raff out”—my smart-aleck proposal was to emblazon the new flag with the universal prohibition sign (red circle/backslash symbol) superimposed over a cartoon member of the riff-raff, possibly wearing sunglasses and shorts, surrounded by snowflakes.

My friend Jay, a St. Paul resident, thought we could add an ice fisherman catching a curler through a hole in a lake. Give the guy one of those Elmer Fudd hats with ear flaps and it sounded like a winner.

Listen: New York, my home for a half-century, could stand an upgrade from its flag’s busy combination of sun symbol, two regal-like “supporters,” an eagle and “excelsior” banner, all on a humdrum blue field. How about, instead, an illustration of author Henry Miller’s characterization of New York as “a gigantic infant playing with explosives”?

But, no, this is not some gag. Sarcasm and scorn have no place here. Rhode Islanders, just because their state is 488 times smaller than Alaska and 251 times smaller than Texas, shouldn’t be saddled with a dishrag-sized flag to emphasize that inconsequential fact. You can’t give Idaho a potato logo and leave it at that.

Flag design ought to deal seriously with a state’s self-image and history, while tiptoeing around the dangers of poor design, forgettable images or—as with the former Minnesota gonfalon, offensive scenes of disenfranchised people. (There are 11 federally recognized tribes in the state.)

While Illinois, Michigan and Maine (which has a recent, striking plan for a single pine tree on a yellow field) are contemplating redesigns, Utah has come up with a simplified and eye-catching banner displaying a beehive, symbolizing the industriousness of its Mormon pioneers, backed by snow-capped mountain peaks. It’s simple and unique, like Texas’ lone-star ensign and the flag of New Mexico (a personal favorite), a plain yellow field with red Zia sun, referencing the state’s Indigenous nation.

There are memorable flags for Arizona (red star and sunburst), Alaska (big dipper), Colorado (big red ‘C’ on blue-and-white stripes), Tennessee (red with three white stars in a blue circle), Maryland (a jumble of red-and-white colliding with black and gold). Not great, but OK. Certainly different. Plus, of course, there is California’s distinct look.

Most state flags, though, are dull, barely recognizable from a distance or too similar to their neighbors’ (Florida and Alabama, both white with red X patterns).

Minnesota has the right idea. Working with a base design contributed by a 24-year-old man on the state’s southwestern border with Iowa and South Dakota, the State Emblem Redesign Commission, which spent $35,000 on the flag facelift project, came up with a final version that evokes the state motto—the North Star, positioned on a stylized depiction of the state’s shape and a nod to Minnesota’s waterworks, its 10,000 lakes and its source of the great Mississippi River.

Ted Kaye, a real vexillologist (secretary of the North American Vexillological Association), has given the new Minnesota flag an A+ for its simplicity, uniqueness and inclusion of meaningful symbols.

Thrown against the wall and sticking?