Emily Hamann
The Bellingham Business Journal

You’re probably familiar with Bradley Lockhart’s work, even if you don’t know him. Since winning the Downtown Bellingham Partnership’s city flag design contest, his Bellingham Flag design has been unofficially adopted, and now flies throughout Bellingham.

Bellingham doesn’t currently have an official city flag, and that’s a problem, Lockhart said.

“Bellingham doesn’t really have any visual identity,” he said. “We have a strong sense of city pride, but we don’t really have a symbol to show it.”

After entering and winning the contest, they first raised the flag in March. Since then, many businesses and organizations have started flying it, including the Port of Bellingham.

Some people have even got tattoos of the flag.

“It’s really fun to see it taking on a life of its own beyond me,” he said.

Through his full-time work in the animation department at Faithlife, and also through his graphic design work, his vision is building a new visual identity for Bellingham.

“I’ve accrued all this knowledge and experience and I just want to use it to make Bellingham a funner place to live,” he said.

He worked with a class of Western Washington University students to help them create animation projects that were be projected on the Flat Iron building downtown during the November Art Walk. Recently, he started talking to elementary classes about the flag, and graphic design in general.

“It’s something that I always wanted to do because when I was a kid I didn’t even know graphic design existed.”

Even before he started as a graphic designer, Lockhart was using his creativity to enrich Bellingham through his music.

He and his bands performs at multiple fundraising concerts each year, and he routinely volunteers his work and time to Make.Shift Art Space.

“My vision is pretty straightforward,” he wrote on his nominee form. “Use my powers for good.”

Click here to read about the rest of our Top 7 Under 40 winners.