flags-n-shit

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can i just say. viet nam has quite possibly the worst flag of any country.

get a load of this. it’s a star. that’s it. and i know somalia does this too but at least they have nice colours. red and yellow are literally the two most common colours on flags. this could be the flag of damn near any country. this is like if the 👤 profile picture were a flag. some flags are ugly but at least ugly can be endearing. this is the most uninspired flag in the history of flags, maybe ever. like i know gold stars and red flags are a communist symbol but like. i know you can do better than that. please do better than that. i would pay to redesign this. steven universe ass flag

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Happy birthday to the Pride Flag!

The gay (later LGBTQ+) pride flag was devised by Gilbert Baker in 1978, and first flown at the San Fransisco Gay Freedom Day parade on June 25th of the same year.

The flag originally had eight stripes of pink, red, orange, yellow, green, turquoise, indigo, and violet. These were assigned the symbolism of sex, life, healing, sunlight, nature, magic, serenity, and spirit, respectively.

The flag was partially inspired by the earlier Brotherhood flag. Designed in 1938, the Brotherhood flag symbolized peace amongst the world's races, and was popular in the counterculture of the 1960s.

The 1938 Brotherhood flag, intended to represent the human race. It has five horizontal stripes of red, white, brown, yellow and black.

The pink stripe was removed not long after the pride flag's inception due to a scarcity of pink fabric. In 1979, the turquoise and indigo stripes were consolidated into a single blue stripe, such that the number of stripes would be even, allowing for three-stripe banners to be displayed on both sides of the parade route. This is how we got the six-stripe variant most people are familiar with today:

In 2018, Portland artist Daniel Quasar created a variant of the six-stripe flag, known as the "Progress flag," that includes concentric chevrons of black, brown, pale blue, pink, and white. These colours symbolise transgender people and people of colour in the LGBTQ+ community. The black stripe also represents those who have been lost to AIDS. The chevron shape indicates forward movement, representing progress.

In 2021, Valentino Vecchietti of Intersex Equality Rights UK debuted an altered Progress flag which includes a yellow triangle containing a purple ring, a design taken from the intersex pride flag.

Left: The intersex-inclusive Progress pride flag. Right: The intersex pride flag, designed in 2013 by Australian activist Morgan Carpenter.

Both variants of the Progress flag, as well as the simple six-stripe version, continue to be widely used by the LGBTQ+ community.

All images: Wikimedia Commons.

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apparently massachusetts has been taking submissions for new flag designs and i somehow didnt hear about it??? it closed like a week ago and i didnt get to submit anything :(

but uh yeah. very belated breaking news: keep an eye on massachusetts this could be cool

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Flag Design Commissions!

Will design flags for countries, factions, characters, organizations, etc., real or imagined. Will also design pride flags, coats of arms, or redesigns of existing flags. Will not design certain political flags at my discretion.

$10 USD for one design, $5 for add-ons such as variants and coats of arms. If you want an especially complicated design, that might be an extra $5 as well at my discretion. If you have a preexisting design in mind, I can also make a digital rendering of your idea for $10.

For more information, DM me here or on Discord (@ the-omniscient-tardigrade). My Tumblr is having technical issues regarding DMs at the moment, so Discord is probably your best bet.

A selection of my past designs:

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Do you have a flag in your room? Country or pride or whatever.

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I like the Juneteenth flag. I think it’s neat.

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Flag design tip #3:

The Rule of Tincture & Fimbriation

In vexillography as in any branch of graphic design, it is generally inadvisable to put clashing colours next to each other. The rule of tincture is a standard that originated in heraldry and continues to impact flag design today. The rule states that no colour should touch any colour other than white or gold, which are called metals and are considered separately from the rest of the rainbow.* To prevent two colours from touching, it is common to place a thin band of white or gold between them. This practice is called fimbriation.

For example, look at this flag. It is a triband of magenta, green, and blue. The three colours clash with each other and the points at which they intersect are confusing and unpleasant.

However, if we put thin stripes of white or gold between them, the problem is eliminated and the flag is much more pleasant to look at.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, but one of the best guidelines to make a flag look clean and elegant is to avoid mixing colours.

*Black is also considered a metal in some heraldic traditions. Black is rarely used to fimbriate, but can generally come in contact with lighter colours with no issue.

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hey guys washington state is thinking abt redesigning their flag

if you want to see this improved, tell your legislator to support HB 1938

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hot take: nigeria’s flag is boring as hell and i think they should put the sun back on it

like doesn’t that just have so much more personality

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Vexillology, or the esoteric and labyrinthine discipline of flaggery, is a kaleidoscopic odyssey into the chromatic tapestries that flutter atop mastodonic poles. In this phantasmagorical realm, one must navigate the quixotic intricacies of heraldic symbology, deciphering the arcane semiotics of vexillary emblems with an epistemological lens that is only 10% polished. The vexillologist, a connoisseur of flaggiferous phenomena, embarks on a peregrination through the annals of history, where each flag is a palimpsest of sociopolitical iconography, albeit with 90% of its narrative lost in the cacophony of time’s tumultuous tides. Thus, in this grandiloquent pursuit, one must embrace the serendipitous serendipity of serendipitous discovery, whilst contending with the syntactical dissonance of a grammar that is as capricious as the winds that animate the very flags they study.

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Vivacious Vexillology: 1. The Qing Dynasty

Here is the inaugural blogpost for a series on various flags throughout history! My interest in vexillology is damn near obsessive but I hope y'all will find this brief dive into the history and symbols of interesting flags! To start off, an iconic and frankly gorgeous flag, that of the Qing Dynasty:

History

The Eight Banners Prior to the conception of any official flags, the Eight Banners were a form of administrative and military divisions employed during the early days of the Qing dynasty, represented by eight banners of different colours and borders.

The banners began as a way of organising and unifying the disparate Jurchen tribes (a people from northeastern China who would eventually be known as the Manchus), but would grow into a formidable fighting force, gradually allowing the Qing to gain more and more control over China which culminate in the complete overthrow of the Ming dynasty in 1863. Machu clans were associated with the Banners based on their power and influence within the early Qing state (also referred to as the Later Jin)

The banners were Blue, Red, White, and Yellow, and were also distinguished by their border. They were further subdivided into Upper and Lower banners (3 upper, 5 lower), with the Upper banners being composed of the more influential and powerful clans within Manchu society. The Upper banners were nominally under direct command of the emperor and the Lower Banners were commanded by nobles from the clans.

The Three Upper Banners: Plain Yellow, Bordered Yellow, and Plain White

The Five Lower Banners: Bordered Red, Plain Red, Bordered White, Plain Blue, and Bordered Blue.

The Triangle 

The first official flag of the Qing empire was a triangular version of the flag featuring the same design which was adopted after 1862 following protests from British officials that were unable to recognise Chinese vessels as the empire had not previously had an official flag. This prompted Prince Yixin to call for the creation of a national flag. The standard design of rectangular flags was rejected for fear of being too similar to that of the Plain Yellow Banner, thus leading to the adoption of the Triangular Design.

The Rectangle 

The encroachment of the European powers and Japan in the 19th century led to attempts to implement policies of Westernisation within China to varying degrees of success. This period also coincided with the decline of the eight banners, particularly with their failures to suppress the Taiping rebellion between 1850 and 1864, thus lessening their influence and significance within the Qing government and society. Thus in 1881, statesman Li Hongzhang sought to make the Qing flag more similar to flags of other countries, adopting the rectangular design. 

Symbolism

The Qing flag was often referred to as the Yellow Dragon Flag. Yellow holds to this day a position of great importance within Chinese colour symbolism. The 五行 (Wuxing) theory of Taoist ties Yellow to the earth element, placing it at the centrepoint of the other 4 elements and generating both Yin and Yang, attributing properties of balance, neutrality, and good luck. Yellow was the colour representing the emperor and both the plain and bordered yellow banners held the highest ranks amongst the eight banners. 

The red circle  in the top corner on the left side of the flag towards which the dragon is facing is a flaming red pearl, facing is a common symbol in Chinese art involving dragons, and is representative of wisdom, prosperity, and power. Joy itself represented joy and good fortune, tying into the properties associated with the flaming pearl. 

Finally the blue dragon is once again a common symbol in Chinese art and has been associated with the Emperor and Imperial power from as early as the Han dynasty. The dragon was a symbol of harmony and good luck, often regarded as a deity of rain. Blue itself was associated with many of the same  properties, tying them to the dragon in the flag design.

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so the initial illinois flag vote didn't go the way i was hoping it would--the current flag won in a landslide with 43 percent of the vote. but that still means that 57 percent (ie., a majority) voted for a new flag--they just couldn't agree on which one, and i honestly don't blame them because most of the redesign proposals are shit. i think what should happen now is they should do a re-vote with the current flag, the runner-up, and the centennial flag.

quite frankly, i think they shouldn't have even had the design contest in the first place. the centennial flag was already well-established and, in my opinion, perfectly well-designed. they should have just did what maine did and gone straight to a referendum to make the centennial flag the official state flag, instead of spending time and money sifting through thousands of (mostly awful) redesigns just to end up splitting the vote.

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Taking commissions for flag designs!

Now taking commissions for designs for flags or coats of arms for:

Fictional countries, characters, factions, etc.

Organizations

Personal use

Really anything that could conceivably use a flag

My qualifications?

I’m a fucking nerd who designs flags for a hobby

I’m decent at it

If you want your own flag design, send me a DM. Prices start at $10 USD per design, but might vary depending on the complexity of the job.

A selection of my past designs:

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I'm putting together a glossary of all flag-related terms! It's intended to clear up some vocabulary for people who are still learning about flags. It's still a work in progress, but here's the link for anyone who wants to take a look:

Glossary of Vexillological Terms.xlsx

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With Pride month coming up soon I thought I'd share this tutorial I made for drawing flags!

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So I made this post as a joke but now I'm actually thinking about it, and, ridiculous as it seems, I think it's not too far-fetched to conclude that a ribbon on a stick is, in fact, a flag.

The most obvious difference between this and conventional flags is its shape: it is easily a dozen times as long as it is tall. You'd think that at some point, it would stop being a flag and become a ribbon, but historically, there have been some pretty damn long flags. One example is the commissioning pennants which fly from the masts of battleships. Pictured are the pennants flown by the Japanese Navy, Royal Canadian Navy, and United States Coast Guard:

Long, pennon-like flags are also widely used in the Nordic countries of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland, where flying the national flag is prohibited except on holidays, so people usually fly "household pennants" or vimpels instead--very long, usually triangular or trapezoidal flags with designs based on the national flag. Numerous versions of these pennants also exist for local regions and ethnic groups. Pictured here is a typical Danish vimpel.

So, there are definitely some extremely long flags out there, but in deciding what makes something a flag, we must inspect not just its shape, but also how it's used.

Twirling ribbons such as these are used by gymnasts and dancers, both in individual performances and in groups. The way they are used reminded me at first of colour guards, shown here at right, who perform with much larger banners that are undeniably flags.

However, there are major differences in the nature of these performances: colour guards wave their flags in large, dramatic swooping movements and often throw their flags in the air, whereas ribbon performers use smaller, more graceful spiral motions usually accompanied by more advanced dance, and never let go of the stick.

I think one could argue that while colour guards are doing tricks with flags, ribbon twirlers are performing a dance with a prop that happens to be mechanically similar to a flag.

So, in conclusion, I really think it just depends on how you look at it. As a physical object, a twirling ribbon is by all means a flag: it is a piece of fabric, usually rectangular, longer than it is tall, affixed to a pole from which it is flown. It's comparable to a scaled-down version of some types of pennons. However, the way it is used differs from what we typically consider a flag: it is used only in performance, which we did establish doesn’t inherently make it not a flag, but it doesn't help its case. Ribbons are never flown from stationary poles, draped on walls, or ever really left to move on their own in the wind, nor do they convey any sort of information.

All this being said, I leave it to you, dear reader, to decide just how pedantic you want to be about the definition of such words as “flag” and “pennon,” and which criteria you deem most important. The physical characteristics of the twirling ribbon are similar to those of flags, but this is most likely a coincidence, as its usage is unrelated. I really don’t care enough to come to a solid conclusion here.

is this a flag. discuss.