A Missouri county asks for help designing a new seal after old one turns heads online

In theory, the seal of St. Francois County, Mo., has all the trappings of a normal, classic government seal: A bald eagle pictured across a waving American flag, with a Bible, cross, shovel and pickaxe all encircled by the text "The Great Seal of St. Francois County" and "In God we trust."

But normal, classic government seals do not typically get a lot of attention on social media.

Posted to Reddit's "CrappyDesign" subreddit over the weekend, the modest St. Francois County seal attracted nearly nearly 17,000 upvotes and comments describing it as "free clip-art," "Adobe photoshop free trial" and "strong 'Made in powerpoint' vibes."

Now, commissioners in the small, rural county in eastern Missouri say they will change the seal, most likely through a public contest.

"There's a fever pitch, I understand, on social media about the seal of the county," said Presiding Commissioner Harold Gallaher at a county commission meeting on Tuesday.

The quantity of images on the seal — and that they are full-color photographs rather than more simple renderings — makes it "an artistic and a design challenge," said Ted Kaye, the secretary of the North American Vexillological Association and compiler of the group's guidebook for flag design called "Good Flag, Bad Flag."

"It's a challenge, even for county seals. Often seals are quite detailed because they're meant to be put on a piece of paper and seen close up," he said. "This is clearly a kitchen sink seal."

The impression on social media that the seal was designed by an amateur turns out to be correct: Gallaher, who is in his 70s, designed the county's current seal in 2018.

"I've said a 5-year-old kid with a high fever could do a better job than I did," he said Tuesday.

At its unveiling in 2018, Gallaher said the county seal had not been updated "in years," according to the Daily Journal newspaper. "So, with some simple software, I brought up this new one, and we've adopted that now as our county seal," he said then.

The commissioner who designed the seal says it's time for a new one

This week, Gallaher himself said the time had come for something new, joking at the Tuesday meeting that the current seal is "proof positive that I am not artistically inclined." He invited the public to offer new designs, although he added that the county is not willing to spend taxpayer money on design fees.

Gallaher laid out a handful of requirements for any new seal: It should include all of the symbols on the current one, along with a new symbol alluding to the county's many parks, he said. It should also include less of the color red ("It fades too quickly," he said).

Perhaps most importantly, the new seal should be "better than the seal we have now," Gallaher said to a round of laughs.

Kaye, the flag design expert, says many of the same principles of successful flag design can be applied to seals, as well — namely, "simplicity, meaningful symbolism, few colors and distinctiveness."

According to the Daily Journal, the parameters of the contest will be announced at the next county commission meeting next week.

This story originally appeared in the Morning Edition live blog.

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