In the Spring Semester of 2023 while finishing up my senior exit show "SynThesis" project as a soon to be Graphics Designer graduate from the University of West Florida, I was bringing together various aspects and items for a previous logo/branding project for a local Veteran organization, The Knights of the Pub Table. I found a website where designers can design tartans. So I did just that very thing and used all the basic colors that represent the various service branches and made a tartan for the organization (as seen on this page).
However, it was during this time I realized while doing my research, that all the services (for the most part) have official or in most cases unofficial tartans that can be worn to honor their service by way of kilts...except for one, the recently created US Space Force.
However, it was during this time I realized while doing my research, that all the services (for the most part) have official or in most cases unofficial tartans that can be worn to honor their service by way of kilts...except for one, the recently created US Space Force.
So using the history of the service and how it came to be and where it operates, I created a color pallet, then got to work on designing a pattern and on 1 May 2023 I had a refined design and a meaning to it.
To be clear my previous research identified, and was verified by the US Marine Corps that the previous military tartans were registered with one of the three or four UK tartan registries prior to them combining into a single historical government controlled entity, The Scottish Register of Tartans, and therefore, they were not subject to the current policies or rules of registration which require, for military tartans a commander from the branch of military service to authorize the tartan for use.
So, after digging some more and reaching out to a few kilt makers here in the US, only one responded to my inquiries, James Ansite of Sport Kilt. He has provided me a bunch of information about the process and what might be the biggest challenge, getting the authorization from an official with the military branch of service.
So I reached out to the US Space Force and was told unequivocally that they would not allow their trademark name to be used for a naming convention for a tartan. However, the funny thing was that the US Space Force did not in fact own the trademark to the name "Space Force", Netflix had beaten the US Government to register the name for their TV show of the same name. In fact it wouldn't be until 2025 when the trademark would come up for release for the US Space Force to gain trademark control of it.
So, I tried to register the tartan but due to the trademark of the name, and I did not have a military commander authorizing it's use, the attempt to register the tartan was declined. However I learned a bit from my emails back & forth with the personnel at the Scottish Register of Tartans.
One of the ideas was to possibly reach out to my local Congressman who is a sitting member of the House Arms Services Committee, to see if I could get at least a letter of support, but as that seemed to be about the same long-shot chance as finding a commander to give their authorization for it, I decided to work around the policies in place, as the military taught me to do.
A bit more research lead me down a path to realize that Space Force is trademarked but Space Force Veterans is a colloquial term for those who have service in this particular branch of service and that Space Force Veterans was not trademarked. So armed with that little bit of knowledge I created a Facebook group, and registered a domain and created this web page for the sole purpose of registering a tartan for Space Force Veterans.
I tried to re-register the tartan but kept having submission errors in electronically registering the tartan, and after reaching out to the personnel at the Scottish Register of Tartans and supplying them with all the information pertinent to registration (see "Registration Document" page), they were able to upload it for me. However, one more road-block came up, was the question if the organization was officially registered to meet the requirements of registering it as an organizational tartan...
So, a bit more research and an official filling with the State of Florida resulted in a 501 (c) (19), non-profit Veteran Organization, the Space Force Veterans being filed as an LLC, and with that the path was cleared for the Space Force Veterans - Beyond the Blue (Added to the original Space Force Veterans name by FB member vote) tartan, registered officially on 14 Nov 2023.
Many, many thanks to James Ansite of Sport Kilt and the personnel of the Scottish Register of Tartans, and to my family and friends who supported me in this endeavor!
To be clear my previous research identified, and was verified by the US Marine Corps that the previous military tartans were registered with one of the three or four UK tartan registries prior to them combining into a single historical government controlled entity, The Scottish Register of Tartans, and therefore, they were not subject to the current policies or rules of registration which require, for military tartans a commander from the branch of military service to authorize the tartan for use.
So, after digging some more and reaching out to a few kilt makers here in the US, only one responded to my inquiries, James Ansite of Sport Kilt. He has provided me a bunch of information about the process and what might be the biggest challenge, getting the authorization from an official with the military branch of service.
So I reached out to the US Space Force and was told unequivocally that they would not allow their trademark name to be used for a naming convention for a tartan. However, the funny thing was that the US Space Force did not in fact own the trademark to the name "Space Force", Netflix had beaten the US Government to register the name for their TV show of the same name. In fact it wouldn't be until 2025 when the trademark would come up for release for the US Space Force to gain trademark control of it.
So, I tried to register the tartan but due to the trademark of the name, and I did not have a military commander authorizing it's use, the attempt to register the tartan was declined. However I learned a bit from my emails back & forth with the personnel at the Scottish Register of Tartans.
A bit more research lead me down a path to realize that Space Force is trademarked but Space Force Veterans is a colloquial term for those who have service in this particular branch of service and that Space Force Veterans was not trademarked. So armed with that little bit of knowledge I created a Facebook group, and registered a domain and created this web page for the sole purpose of registering a tartan for Space Force Veterans.
I tried to re-register the tartan but kept having submission errors in electronically registering the tartan, and after reaching out to the personnel at the Scottish Register of Tartans and supplying them with all the information pertinent to registration (see "Registration Document" page), they were able to upload it for me. However, one more road-block came up, was the question if the organization was officially registered to meet the requirements of registering it as an organizational tartan...
So, a bit more research and an official filling with the State of Florida resulted in a 501 (c) (19), non-profit Veteran Organization, the Space Force Veterans being filed as an LLC, and with that the path was cleared for the Space Force Veterans - Beyond the Blue (Added to the original Space Force Veterans name by FB member vote) tartan, registered officially on 14 Nov 2023.
Many, many thanks to