Polyamorous Pride Flag (2016, Monroe / RatLab Art)

Overview

To modernize the polyamory flag's aesthetics while preserving the original color meanings (openness, love, solidarity).

By 2016, dissatisfaction with the 1995 Evans flag had been building for years. The flag's garish websafe colors (a direct artifact of the Microsoft Paint and Windows 3.1 constraints Evans worked under) and the obscure pi symbol were frequent targets of criticism. The polyamory community had largely adopted the infinity heart as its preferred symbol, but the flag still used pi. Monroe's redesign was one of the first widely circulated alternatives to directly address these complaints: it softened the red and blue, swapped the positions of the black and red bands, and replaced the pi with an infinity heart. The infinity heart symbol itself was created by Brian Crabtree and placed in the public domain in the 1990s. ^[1][2][3]

Identity & Context

Represented Identity

polyamorous

Subcommunity

non-monogamous / relationship style

Movement

polyamory visibility and pride

Creators

The Creator

Attribution notes

Monroe, posting under the handle RatLab Art, published the redesign in August 2016. Monroe stated: "I redesigned the polyamory flag bc the old one seems a little jarring to me. I like the original meaning behind the colors, though." The Wikimedia Commons file carries the artist credit "Monroe - aka RatLab Art" and links the original Tumblr post. No name beyond Monroe and no biographical detail have been located. ^[1][2][4]

Origin

Digital Origin

Yes

Digital origin; no verified physical location.

Published online by Monroe (RatLab Art) in August 2016; the file's own creation timestamp reads 25 August 2016. ^[1][4]

Dates & Chronology

Year Created

2016

Exact date

August 25, 2016

First public use

August 25, 2016

Period in Use

2016-2022 (primary circulation period)

The Monroe redesign circulated widely in polyamory communities online and was one of the most commonly cited intermediate designs in discussions about replacing the Evans flag. It did not achieve consensus adoption, and the community ultimately selected a different design (Red Howell, 2022) through the PolyamProud process.

However, it represents the first widely recognized attempt to address the 1995 flag's aesthetic shortcomings while respecting its symbolic framework. ^[1][2]

The Monroe flag was one of over 30 polyamory flag redesigns created between 1995 and 2022. Other notable intermediates include Emma Essex's September 2019 redesign (cyan, light red, and black stripes with a white field behind a light-red-and-cyan infinity heart) and Molly Colleen Bennett Wilvich's 2020 design (lime green, kelly green, sky blue, royal blue stripes with a white infinity heart, each color carrying detailed symbolic meanings). None achieved consensus until the 2022 PolyamProud vote, which selected Red Howell's design through a community process led by PolyamProud writer Dee Morgan and others. The common thread across almost all intermediates was the replacement of pi with the infinity heart. The infinity heart had been the community's preferred symbol since at least the early 2010s, when it displaced the older 'poly parrot' emblem (Ray Dillinger, 1997 or earlier) that had served as the logo of the alt.polyamory Usenet group. ^[1][2][3]

Lineage

Direct predecessors

Polyamorous Pride Flag

Sibling flags

Polyamorous Pride Flag (2019, Emma Essex), Tricolor Polyamorous Pride Flag

A direct redesign of the 1995 Evans flag. The 2022 Howell flag is not a descendant of this design (it was selected through a separate community process) but addresses the same dissatisfaction that motivated this redesign. This flag is a bridge in the lineage narrative: it documents the community's aesthetic trajectory between 1995 and 2022 even though the 2022 flag was not derived from it. ^[1][2]

Lineage tree

Every record reachable from this one through documented parent and child relationships: 2 records across 2 generations.

Ancestor

Polyamorous Pride Flag

This record

Polyamorous Pride Flag (2016, Monroe / RatLab Art)

Colors & Symbolism

Monroe kept the 1995 flag's colour meanings, blue for openness and honesty, red for love and passion, black for solidarity with closeted polyamorous people, and changed how they are arranged and rendered. The gold infinity heart replaced pi as the central symbol, reflecting the community's shift toward the infinity heart as its preferred emblem. ^[1][2]

Sampled from the 1280 by 853 original on Wikimedia Commons ^[4]

Gold infinity heart

Replaces the pi symbol from the 1995 flag. The infinity heart represents infinite love and the possibility of loving multiple partners. The very first version of the infinity heart was created and placed in the public domain by Brian Crabtree in the mid-1990s. By around 2010, the infinity heart had largely displaced the older "poly parrot" symbol (Ray Dillinger, 1997 or earlier) as the community's preferred emblem. The gold preserves Evans' meaning for the colour, the value placed on emotional attachment, but not his value: Evans used a pure #FFFF00, Monroe a softer #FFCA56. Alan M of Polyamory in the News observed that a brighter gold than Monroe's chosen tan would better preserve Evans' symbolism. ^[1][3][4]

Monroe explicitly stated they preserved the original color meanings. The key changes were aesthetic (desaturation, stripe reordering) and symbolic (pi to infinity heart), not semantic.

Sampled from the 1280 by 853 JPEG on Wikimedia Commons, whose metadata carries the artist credit and a creation date of 25 August 2016, checked against the byte count the file page reports before sampling. ^[4]

Two earlier sets of values are superseded. The entry first carried #1A1A1A, #B84A4A, #4A6B96 and #C9A567, listed in the order black, red, blue: materially more muted than any located file, and in an order the design does not use. It then carried #3E85F6, #EC533E and #F7CC6B, sampled from the repository's own copy, which drifts from the Commons file by a few points in every channel. The values above come from the file that carries the designer's credit.

Design

Aspect Ratio

3:5 · standard

Orientation

horizontal

Stripe Count

3

Layout

horizontal_stripes_with_symbol

Stripes (Top → Bottom)

Blue, Black, Red-Orange

Center Symbol

Gold infinity heart

Three horizontal bands with a centred gold infinity heart. They are not of equal depth: on the 1280 by 853 original the blue runs 255 rows, the black 342 and the red-orange 256, which is 30, 40 and 30 percent of the height. The emblem spans 23.6 to 76.2 percent of the width and 20.6 to 79.7 percent of the height, so it crosses all three bands. Against the Evans flag, which runs blue, red, black, the black and red have exchanged places. ^[4]

Three horizontal bands of 30, 40 and 30 percent depth: blue at the top, black in the middle, red-orange at the bottom, with a gold infinity heart centred across all three. ^[4]

Three horizontal bands, blue #2084FE at the top, black #000000 through the middle at the greatest depth, red-orange #FF4330 at the bottom, with a gold #FFCA56 infinity heart centred and drawn as an interlaced line rather than a filled shape. Alan M of Polyamory in the News noted: "Again the colors are more muted than the original's. The infinity heart is proudly center stage and grabs you from a distance. I might prefer a brighter gold rather than tan, keeping Evans' original symbolism that went with the gold color for the pi." ^[1][4]

Usage & Adoption

First Users

Online polyamory communities

Online Usage

Tumblr and social media polyamory communities, Referenced in PolyamProud's history of polyamory flags

Current Status

historical

Circulated widely online as an alternative to the 1995 Evans flag but did not achieve consensus adoption. Superseded by the 2022 Howell flag selected through the PolyamProud community vote. ^[1][2]

Image Archive

Historical Rendition

Archive Reconstruction

Discourse & Debates

• Whether any individual redesign could achieve consensus without a community process. The Monroe flag was well-received but could not overcome the fragmentation problem: with over 30 alternatives circulating, no single design could claim community endorsement. This problem was ultimately addressed not by a better design but by a better process (the PolyamProud vote). ^[2]

Common misidentifications

• May be confused with the 1995 Evans flag (same three base colors, but desaturated and reordered, with infinity heart instead of pi).
• May be confused with the 2019 Emma Essex redesign, which also uses similar colors and an infinity heart but with lighter overall tones.

Criticisms

• Some community members suggested the gold should be brighter to better preserve Evans' symbolism of emotional attachment. ^[2]

The infinity heart (a heart outline with an infinity loop) was created by Brian Crabtree in the mid-1990s and placed in the public domain. It displaced the older 'poly parrot' symbol around 2010 and is now the dominant polyamory emblem. ^[1]

Footnotes & Citations

Image Sources

Rendering

Monroe/RatLab Art 2016 version

• Encycloflaggia reconstruction of the Monroe redesign, infinity heart traced from the source file · Credit: Design: Monroe (RatLab Art); reconstruction by Encycloflaggia · Encycloflaggia · reconstructionRights Archive-produced reconstruction of a design whose source file is dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0
• The 1280 by 853 JPEG on Wikimedia Commons, credited to Monroe and dated 25 August 2016 in its metadata · Credit: Monroe (RatLab Art); uploaded by Slydersno, 25 August 2019 · Wikimedia Commons · verified
• The source file, 1280 by 853 pixels, whose metadata credits "Monroe - aka RatLab Art" and records a creation date of 25 August 2016. Monroe wrote: "I redesigned the polyamory flag bc the old one seems a little jarring to me. I like the original meaning behind the colors, though." The design keeps the Evans colour meanings, blue for openness and honesty, red for love and passion, black for solidarity with those who must hide their relationships, and exchanges the positions of the black and red bands. The entry's colours and geometry are measured from this file. ^[4][1] · Credit: Monroe (RatLab Art); uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by Slydersno, 25 August 2019 · Wikimedia Commons · CC0 1.0 Universal (Public Domain Dedication)
• The archive's reconstruction, normalised to 3:5. Band depths and the interlaced infinity heart are traced from the Commons file rather than approximated; the emblem's overlaps are preserved as drawn. ^[4] · Credit: Design: Monroe (RatLab Art); reconstruction by Encycloflaggia · Encycloflaggia reconstruction · Archive-produced reconstruction of a design whose source file is dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0