COLUMBIA, Tenn. (WTVF) — It was an exciting idea for a lot of people, a chance to create something that will live in a city's history. With that came a challenge. How do sum up a city into just one symbol?
It must be quite something to know what comes from your office makes up so much of what you see around your city.
"I don't say no," smiled Bryson Leach of the Good Sign Design Co. "Someone will say, 'can you do this?' I'm like, 'maybe!'"
Bryson has created a lot of downtown Columbia's signage.
"There's the aMuse'um Children's Museum, Taps Off Main, Muletown Coffee, Farmstead Market, the Little Neighbors sign," he said. "I make my rounds to make sure they're still there and in good quality. That one's still there, good. Alright. If they need paint, I'm like, 'let me touch that up for you.' I keep an eye on them like they're my kids."
So, when a contest came about, it peaked Bryson's interest. High school senior Nathaniel Bliss made an announcement alongside the mayor that for his Eagle Scout project, he was going to launch a contest to submit designs for Columbia's flag. The city had not had an official flag before.
Bryson was in. He began studying flag designs, figuring out what he could bring to his. Pulling from his design experience, Bryson presented his design. It displayed a red and blue flag with a single star and wavy lines intertwining the red and blue. After a public vote, it is the winning design for Columbia's flag.
"I wanted to sew in a lot of meaning to the flag that I worked on," Bryson explained. "I took that star from the tristar and put that in there. It harkens to the Tennessee flag. The waves are the Duck River. The two colors and the way they overlap each other is my way of talking about the diversity of Columbia and the dedication this city has to make sure we live in this equitable place of diversity.
For Bryson, there's pride in all the work that comes from this shop. This piece, though, is something special.
"My grandma was like, 'what's it like that, maybe the next hundred years, this flag is going to be part of city history?'" Bryson said. "I was all like, 'oh yeah, you're right. That really is special.'"
