GRAND RAPIDS, Mich — When you come to Grand Rapids, this symbol pictured below is hard to miss because it's kind of everywhere.
But what is it?
“It looks like a yellow blob with some red and blue in it,” laughed Grand Rapids City Archives Officer Tony Wright.“So you kind of have to understand Grand Rapids to understand the flag".
Designed in the 1970s by local artist Joseph Kinnebrew and adopted by G-R in the 1980s, the city logo is an artistic combination of three things. The red part is La Grande Vitesse, the iconic Calder sculpture from downtown. This blue line is the Grand River and the yellow circle is a representation of the sun.
“Grand Rapids is very unique," Tony said. "The city has a great art culture here, and I would say, as far as cities go in Michigan, Grand Rapids definitely has its own style, and I think that fits the city perfectly.”
But – it turns out it’s not the only symbol that fits the city. Even though the Kinnebrew-designed logo is on a lot of signs and buildings around the city, including this flag flying outside City Hall, it's not the official city flag.
That official flag would be this blue and white eagle and scales design, created around 1915 to replace the Furniture City flag that, you guessed it, promoted the city’s furniture industry.
Moving to the blue and white flag seems like the right call to me, it really doesn’t matter if the city's logo looks like a Pac-Man with braces, the Latin Eagle design, or even the Factory Flag, logos like these can help people connect with their city and celebrate what makes it unique.
“You kind of have to understand Grand Rapids to understand the flag," Tony said. "It's almost kind of like you're in a secret club and you got, like a secret handshake, and you see the flag, and you're like, oh, yeah, I'm from Grand Rapids. I know what that's all about. Like they say, like, it's a Grand Rapids thing you wouldn't understand.”
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