Artist Explanation:

What ended up being the base of my final design was my second sketch, and as soon as I made it I knew that I wanted to focus on it, so I only had 1 draft.  The 5 shades of red represent the 5 best known universities in Boston: Northeastern, MIT, Harvard, Boston College, and Boston University.  The American flag design represents the role that Boston played in the American Revolution.  The navy rectangle represents the Charles River and Boston Harbor, which are extremely important to the city, and combined with the yellow in the stars symbolizes #BostonStrong, which is an important symbol to the city.  There are 12 stars to represent each of the cities that make up the Boston metro area: Hull, Hingham, Weymouth, Quincy, Braintree, Milton, Winthrop, Chelsea, Everett, Revere, Saugus, and Boston itself.  In the draft, the green was sampled from Fenway Park's Green Monster, symbolizing baseball's importance to the city.