Ideas for design was publicly called for at the time of independence in 1966. Out of more than a 1000 ideas, the Barbados teacher Grantley Prescod's design was selected. It is said that the ultramarin (blue) represents the sea and sky, and gold (yellow) the color of the sand. In the center is the spearhead, a symbole of Sea God Neptune. By depicting the tip of the broken spearhead, it expresses the breaking away from colonial pasts.