Clifton artist designs new flag

Photos/T. Julian Pertkiewicz

Clifton artist Sam Kapral has re-designed the American flag to place more emphasis on the 50 states and not just the original 13 colonies. By making the stars space larger, and decreasing the size of the stripes, he said he has accomplished one of his two goals. His second goal is to present the flag to the president.

CLIFTON Sam Kapral smoothes the prototype pages out along the dining table of his home, the Clifton home he's lived in for more than 40 years. There it is: the culmination of four long years of work, shown in pictures. His finished design still looks like the American flag, but it has been altered carefully to show a side of Old Glory that Kapral feels has long been overdue. As he adjusts the pages he beams his satisfaction at his hard work.

His neighbor of many years, Doreen Delancy-Williams, describes him as a very kind and passionate man. "The sweetest man you ever want to meet."

In his retirement he wishes to continue to share his designs with the world by helping make something new again. Although his doctor visits take up a lot of his time and energy, he has managed to see his flag design project through.

During Kapral's career, he has designed packaging for products such as fragrances, creams, and even product art for Gold Medal Biscuit Mix. Before entering retirement, he was a senior artist at Elizabeth Arden for 22 years, where he designed packaging for the company's cosmetics. In the 1950s he trained at Newark School of Fine Art, where upon graduation he was awarded the Designer's Guild award of first prize for one of his designs. In his basement studio he still keeps his portfolio of carefully preserved renderings and blueprints of his academic designs, now just over 60 years old. His designs appear ahead of their time, with clean lines and a minimalist presence of today's popular designs, with just a splash of color.

However, his experience goes far beyond technical design; from watercolors, to pencils, to sketches, to an oil painting of his late wife in her youth - his artwork tells the story of a man who has been artistic all his life. Now at 89, Kapral admits with a chuckle that he prefers to be a manager when it comes to most projects, like his home remodeling. However, the American flag holds deep sentimental value for him. When he realized it had not been updated in decades and he saw room for improvement, it felt natural to take matters into his own hands.

The modern flag design was adopted in 1960, which depicts all 50 states as stars. However, the same general design has been in use since its inception in the 1770s. When asked why he decided to redesign the flag, Kapral replies, "If there is a chance to upgrade something - well, we upgrade everything else." He goes on to mention how America upgraded from horses to cars. "When I was a boy there was only one car on my block... People used to say, 'if a car breaks, you should just get a horse.'" He draws this conclusion: if we stayed with the old ways out of fear, there would be little progress. "Now cars are everywhere."

Kapral's redesign begins with the stars. Instead of the tiny square of blue to corral the stars, it has been extended to the base of the flag. Over time, he has rearranged the stars into various configurations, until he found the staggered pattern he desired. Beside the panel of blue and white, the red and white stripes alternate uniformly as before, but now each of the stripes is equal in length.

His explanation is simple: the current American flag places too much emphasis on the original 13 colonies, represented by the 13 red and white stripes. There is not enough emphasis on the individual states as stars. "We should be proud of our states and show them all," Sam remarks. His final design shows the stars enlarged, to display more prominently against their blue backdrop.

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Clifton artist designs new flag