Cyrill Reyes

Cyrill Reyes

1.  How does the flag you designed represent who you are and what you care about? 
Our flag designs are influenced by the Northern Cardinal, Illinois state bird. The Cardinals are very resilient to a lot of things so I thought that the Cardinal would be a great representation of our county, especially during the past 2 years.

2.  Why did you decide to join the Flag 2021 competition?
I wanted to join the flag competition because I really wanted to try my hand at something big in life. I saw the flag as an opportunity to leave some sort of legacy that my generation made.

 3.  What did you learn about Cook County that surprised you?
I learned that Cook County is the 2nd most populated county in the U.S.

 4. Tell us a short story about your collaboration with your flag mentor/partner(s).
On the day we first met up and introduced ourselves, our mentor, Lisa, gave very helpful insight on what the judges had commented on our flags. Gabe, my partner, shared his flag which had good ideas that I thought would be worthy to add to the final product. From there, we recognized the weaknesses and strengths of our designs and began making concepts together and individually on our own time. Weeks passed and after spending time after zoom calls thinking deeply about what we were gonna do, and playing around in gimp and Illustrator, Gabe and I eventually created 2 flag concepts that encompassed the best of both of our initial flags. Thanks to Lisa, we were able to get the ideas and prompts looked at from the 2nd pair of eyes, and as well as giving us the green light to submit two designs.