Coco Chanel made a name for designing many things, though flags of any sort weren't among them. Still, flag design expert Ted Kaye cites her famous dictum in his parameters for a good flag: “Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off.”“Only the simplest designs really function well,” says Kaye, who is the secretary of the North American Vexillological Association — “The World’s Largest Organization of Flag Enthusiasts and Scholars” — and compiler of the design guide "Good Flag, Bad Flag."It’s advice he and other vexillologists hope the Illinois Flag Commission will take to heart as it forges ahead with the contest to pick a new flag to represent the state.Through Feb. 14, you can vote at ilsos.gov/stateflag once every 24 hours on 10 finalists winnowed down from nearly 5,000 submissions.Voters also can select previous flag designs — one from the 1960s and another from 1918 — or to leave Illinois’ existing flag (commonly derided as “a seal on a bedsheet” by flag connoisseurs like Kaye) as is.You can view all 5,000 submissions thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request by journalist Miles MacClure.After the vote, results will be sent to the General Assembly, which will make a decision later this year.Other states, including Utah, Minnesota and Mississippi, have recently gone through this process, as has Cook County, which revamped its flag in 2022. These candidates for a new Illinois state flag, submitted by the public, celebrate industry, agriculture, the state butterfly and other iconic Prairie State symbols.Illinois Flag Commission; collage by Esther Bergdahl/WBEZ Reactions have been mixed on the dozen or so final prospects for Illinois. Several use President Lincoln’s famous silhouette. One features a solid orange butterfly, while another simply reproduces the present flag with stripes down the sides (“practical and economic,” its designer writes). Will Stephens, the mayor of downstate Murphysboro and a flag commissioner, says, “We were trying to hone in on things that wouldn’t be criticized as being too regional.”Was he happy with the 10 finalists?“I don't know if I'd say I’m happy,” he says. “I would say that I’m satisfied that we did the best we could with what we had.”Stephens includes himself among those who have no problem with the current Illinois state flag — perhaps unsurprising, given some of the rejected submissions: “Gov. Pritzker riding a dinosaur or something, or Abraham Lincoln with like, radioactive-looking eyes.” There is an art to good flag design, and even with these options, something inspiring can be within reach. As Kaye puts it, “In every bad design, there’s a good design trying to get out.”Chicagoans come into this contest with a strange disadvantage: Our city flag is too good. The Chicago flag looks effortless, but its creator, Wallace Rice, took hundreds of drafts and revisions to settle on it. (Rice also happened to write the rules for the 1917 Chicago Tribune contest to choose a design.)“The challenges around civic design are vastly different than other forms of design,” says Jason Kunesh, who from 2018 to 2021 served as Chicago’s first design director. “Flags are pure culture stuff. It’s not just about having technology or data. Does it work for people? Is it addressing what they need?” Those needs aren’t functional either — they tell a story about who a flag represents, from officials and functionaries to residents and outsiders. Many proposed designs for the new Illinois state flag feature the six-pointed Chicago star or the silhouette of President Abraham Lincoln.Illinois Flag Commission; collage by Esther Bergdahl/WBEZ “The farther up you go in the level of government, the higher the stakes are,” Kaye says. “People go to war under national flags. They hardly even compete under city flags. State flags are kind of in the middle.”Still, state flags appear on official documents, in national ceremonies, at government outposts and, for the lucky few, on the bodies of proud citizens as tattoos. They need to be legible in a large group and at a distance, even when draped or at rest.“We fly this piece of fabric on a stick at a distance to show what team we’re on,” Kaye says. “Imagine it as a patch on a public service employee’s uniform. Draw it in that 1 by 1.5-inch rectangle, because that’s what it’s going to look like at 100 feet.”That’s what makes simplicity so crucial to good flag design. Drew Duffy should know: As a 17-year-old at Glenbrook South High School in Glenview, he created the winning entry for Cook County’s new standard. Unveiled in 2022, it incorporates the municipal device, the Y-shape depicting Wolf Point and the three branches of the Chicago River, with six red stars for various events in county history and green stripes representing forest preserves and nature.“Sometimes you feel the need to represent everybody in the flag, and I get it,” Duffy says. “But if a flag is just telling a little bit of a story with powerful symbols, I think sometimes it’s good to keep that perspective in mind.” Officials and designer Drew Duffy help raise the new Cook County flag during the new flag’s unveiling at Daley Plaza in the Loop in 2022.Pat Nabong/Sun-Times Certain flags are widely regarded as vexillologically inspiring: Canada, Texas, Amsterdam, Minnesota. Their simplicity plays a key role — a palmetto and a crescent sums up South Carolina, versus the clamor of Virginia’s fussy 18-color, word-heavy seal. “Generally speaking, there’s one symbolic idea, maybe two, but that’s it,” Kaye says. These designs are also timeless.Designers believe it’s important an Illinois state flag doesn’t simply become a second Chicago flag. Anthony Hall, designer and owner at Harebrained, has a knack for iconography that speaks to Chicagoans, from giardiniera and Jewel-Osco bags to dibs chairs and the Rat Hole. He grew up in Woodstock, “the furthest ’burbs you could still get WGN and WGN commercials,” he says. “I would never have designed this flag,” he jokes of the 10 finalists, “because it’s got no hotdog on it.”Yet thanks to his affinity for Chicago imagery, he has some crucial advice for a state flag: “I would like to see something that could develop its own significance in time, as opposed to taking the Lincoln silhouette or the Chicago star. Maybe it’ll take on a meaning later, after it’s adopted.” The sesquicentennial (150-year, upper left) and centennial (upper right) designs for the Illinois state flag are candidates for adoption. The lower two flags are new designs, including the one in the lower right that simply adds stripes to the current standard.Illinois Flag Commission; collage by Esther Bergdahl/WBEZ Duffy — now a sophomore at Ohio’s Denison University studying data visualization and politics — looked to history when designing the Cook County flag.“Illinois had a really good flag for their centennial, and I think it’s one that should fly over the state again,” he says. “It’s a story of when Illinois became a state, before the Civil War. At a time when our country seems pretty divided, that seems like a pretty great symbol to adopt again.”Each designer agreed that no matter which submission the state chooses for its next flag, the design should be handed off to professionals for refinement. Duffy notes his Cook County design went through numerous revisions after he received input from historians and art experts. Elements from one design may even migrate to another, such as a color scheme or a symbol. The flag should also look good as a three-dimensional object in use, which means it should be tested first in the real world.The designer of Illinois’ next state flag will see regular reminders of their special contribution. Duffy’s winning Cook County flag was “something that I worked really hard on, and I see it flying outside the Art Institute of Chicago and in court, and I see it on the news and behind politicians giving press conferences. It’s really special to me to see that all the time.” Drew Duffy, who designed the new Cook County flag, looks at the old flag as his mentor Martin Burciaga stands beside him during the new flag’s unveiling at Daley Plaza in the Loop in 2022.Pat Nabong/Sun-Times WBEZ statehouse reporter Mawa Iqbal contributed.