Symbols of

The Free Republic of California

Some old, some new, it’s a new day and we will look the part.

The flag was at first a tough call. Who doesn’t love the old flag? Then, we looked at the history and it wasn’t good. Alex Abella, for the LA Times, for instance wrote that the State’s adoption was “concomitant with a real racist and nativist movement that was happening in California at the time.” Specifically, the ‘Bear Revolt Flag’ first was adopted by Southern sympathizers during the Civil War and then, politicians backing the adoption of it as the State flag concurrently supported the racist and anti-immigrant bill, the California Alien Land Law of 1913. And that was that.

As for the new flag, it is meant to evoke the structure of a horizon, with the seal as the sun rising on a new day, a new era. The colors of pale blue and green reference the earthly environment and visions of peaceful existence, the dark blue symbolizes the richness of the deep Pacific. The red star is taken from the original ‘Free California’ flag of 1836 which was a white flag with a red five-pointed star in its center that Juan Bautista Valentín Alvarado y Vallejo raised vowing to gain autonomy for California from Mexican rule. The seal is also new and described below.

The Seal

The State of California seal was also not without scandal. Notably, its original designer ran off and joined the Confederacy! And, in recent permeations, a mysterious building appeared on the hill, perhaps San Quentin Prison. The seal, however, unlike the flag was not used as specific racist propaganda (it’s a low bar).

The Free Republic of California used the State seal as a starting point. Minerva, the Greek goddess of wisdom, handicraft and warfare (i.e. wrestling and stone throwing in her time), is looking the opposite direction, as is the Grizzly Bear while nibbling on grape leaves. They’ve moved onwards in their journey. There is one star in the sky, noting California’s independence. Previously, there were thirty-one stars, referencing the State’s chronology in U.S. statehood. ‘Eureka’ remains as it was, meant to demonstrate the joy explorers expressed the first time they saw the beauty of California. The font has changed too, which is described below.

A Visionary Font

Within the Seal you’ll notice a strangely familiar font, it is Optician Sans. The Free Republic of California selected Optician Sans because those are the letters that demonstrate if one has vision.

The font is based specifically on the Snellen and Sloan typefaces of the LogMAR Vision Charts used around the world. However, these fonts were only drawn for ten letters. Luckily, in 2018, ANTI Hamar and typographer Fábio Duarte Martins developed them into the complete functional alphabet of Optician Sans. You can learn more and download it yourself here.

The Letterhead

The Seal continues onward onto the page for the official letterhead of the State. The letterhead is presented here so that it can be downloaded and used by anyone for purposes consistent with the principles of California. For instance, you can use it to write to the U.S. Congress regarding raising the national minimum wage or suggesting heightened environmental regulations or to write to heads of financial institutions to de-invest their portfolios of companies that produce weapons. It’s up to you, use it to push us forward. Send copies to us too. Click here for the pdf and here for the word document.

The State Motto

The State of California’s motto was ‘Eureka’ which, translated from Greek, equates to ‘I have found it!’ We still love this exuberant statement of discovery and it remains on the seal and flag. However, perhaps the Free Republic can also have a longer expression of the sentiment? Oscar Wilde captured the entire idea of the Free Republic eloquently and we’ve adopted his words as our ‘long motto’.