FRANKFORT, Ky. (FOX 56) — Most flags flying above buildings in each community are easy to spot, and people know what they represent. But that’s not the case for every city flag, especially in Kentucky’s capital city.

Frankfort’s city flag is not flying on the Capitol, the county courthouse, or even city hall. The only place vexillologist Tom Farmer could find it was flying in front of Frankfort’s Public Safety Center. Farmer is organizing the citizen-led effort, known as the Frankfort Flag Initiative, to update and redesign the city flag.

“When I looked at it, I said, You know what? There’s nothing wrong with what’s on the flag, necessarily. But there are better ways to design a flag that make them more useful in public,” Farmer told FOX 56.

Farmer has the green light from the city to start the volunteer-led effort. Frankfort’s current flag was adopted in 1959 with a simple seal depicting the Kentucky River and two capitols, flanked by busts of Daniel Boone and a boy scout.

“It’s simply that a flag is meant to be something easily recognizable from a distance. The current flag has a lot of very minute line drawings on it. If you stand more than 20 yards away, you can’t even make them out,” Farmer said.

The North American Vexillological Association keeps up with the cities that are posting new colors. Their website said that since 2015, hundreds of new or redesigned flags have been adopted. The neighboring city of Midway is one example that adopted a new design in 2022.

“We are currently in the process of forming a design group, which again will be all citizens. We want to get a wide, diverse group from around the community. We’ll try to do that throughout November, and then in December we will basically do training and public education and hopefully launch our public campaign to get public design submissions in January,” Farmer said.

Farmer isn’t rushing the process and wants to present a design the city can be proud of while also being sensitive to the existing flag and the work that went into it. Next spring and summer will be spent reviewing submissions before presenting a final design tentatively to the city commission in August.

You can learn more about the project at frankfortflag.org or on the Frankfort Flag Initiative Facebook page.