The Flagpole Vol. 8: The Skyland Flag and the Art of Patience
The flag for Denver’s Skyland neighborhood.
Some places tell their stories loudly. Skyland tells its story slowly. It’s the kind of place where the narrative doesn’t hit you all at once, but it builds over time. It grows on you the way spruce trees do: steady, rooted, mostly unnoticeably… until one day you look up and realize, holy sh*t, that’s a tall tree.
Skyland’s beginnings trace back to the early 1900s, when Denver’s new streetcar lines shaped whole neighborhoods. Skyland wasn’t designed to impress, it was designed to live and connect. A quiet residential pocket with easy access downtown, wide views of the Front Range, and a name that rises right out of the horizon. Today, Skyland has become what its early planners intended: a connected, grounded neighborhood, full of life, trees, and subtle character that reveals itself to those who take the time to notice.
When I sat down to create the flag for Skyland, I approached it the same way I like to approach all my work at Narrative Designs: slowly, carefully, letting the place speak first. The colors came from the landscape itself —the blue sky above and green ground below — the two elements that define Skyland’s proximity to City Park and all it has to offer and the neighborhood’s calm, open feel. At the center is a grey shield, a quiet tribute to the streetcar tracks that once ran through the neighborhood and shaped its early identity like many other early Denver neighborhoods. But it’s the spruce tree inside the shield that became the heart of the design.
I don’t know a ton about spruce trees, but I do know they’re slow growers, which probably qualifies me as a top-tier spruce expert. They grow sometimes painfully slow, always steady, and quietly patient. Give them time, and they reach impressive heights, not by forcing it, but by just showing up every day. That felt like Skyland. And honestly, it feels like the work I want to do at Narrative Designs, too.
Places tell richer stories when you don’t rush them. When you sit and stew with the history. When you pay attention to what’s been steady, not just what’s new and flashy. Skyland’s spruce tree became a symbol of that, growing a little each day and quietly reaching higher. So the Skyland flag is more of an acknowledgment than a design. A way of saying that this place has been thriving for a long time. Quietly, but with purpose and strength.
It’s also a reminder that great things take time. The Flags of Denver project has been almost eight years in the making, and every neighborhood has its own pace, its own story. Slow and steady, like a spruce growing toward the sky.
I’ve produced a limited run of 10 flags, ready to fly, now available in the Narrative Designs store. A small tribute to Skyland’s story.
More soon.
—Steve
Explore all the Flags of Denver and learn the stories behind each design → View the collection