Flag Design

Quinn: Hello and welcome back to Pictorial on Relay FM. I'm Quinn Rose, and I'm someone who did not go to art school, but I love to shoe horn things into being art topics on this podcast.

Betty: And I'm Betty. I'm also someone who did not go to art school, but I did go to design school. So I have a little, slightly more credentials this time around than usual.

Quinn: Yeah. This week we have a design podcast because we're going to be talking about flag design. 

Betty: I love flags. 

Quinn: Well, this is really your topic. This is something that you're interested in in general. And you're excited to talk about today. So I'm going to let you take it away right now. 

Betty: Sure. So I do, I mean, I wanna mention before we start that there's already another podcast that's done a few pretty good podcasts on flags. Not to send you away to somebody else or anything, but 99% Invisible podcast has, years ago did a vexillology podcast, which is the design of flags. And they did a really great job into kind of just talking about the basics of flag design, which we'll go over a little bit today too. But, you know, we’re kind of more focusing on talking about specific recent news story about flags, as well as just looking at flags in general. So if you have heard about flags before on podcasts, please stick around because there's more that we're going to talk about.

Quinn: There are breaking news updates.

Betty: There are, there are. I want to start with the news topic that brought up this topic, that kind of made us want to talk about it. And so we're recording this podcast a few days after the United States Election of 2020, and some of the news stories that I was paying attention to specifically were the propositions. So America does have some direct democracy referendums where you can vote on the specific laws, yes or no. And one of the propositions was from the state of Mississippi, it was to vote on the state's new flag design. So Mississippi has actually had their most recent flag that was just voted out for over 120 years. They've had it since 1894. And one of the problems with this old flags is that in the canton, which is the top left hand corner, there is the Confederate flag, as a part of Mississippi's flag. So a lot of Mississippians did not think this flag reflects the values of their state anymore. And so one of the things that happened is that in June of this year, it was actually, the Mississippi state passed a law that removed the old flag as the official flag. And it was signed into law by their governor, Governor Tate Reeves in June. And, you know, just so everyone is aware, this is a bipartisan supported. The governor is Republican and the lawmaker, the initial lawmaker who proposed this policy to remove the flag was also Republican. And obviously a lot of them were supported by Democrats. So it ended up passing easily. And then the new flag design, so there was a committee that reviewed over 3000 flag designs in August. They ended up whittling down to two options and then ultimately a new flag was chosen. So I believe I have sent you the link to the new flag, I guess some initial reactions, or if you would like to also to describe the flag to us. 

Quinn: Sure. So this new flag, it's called the New Magnolia Flag, which makes a lot of sense because the original flag of Mississippi was called the Magnolia Flag. So this is sort of like both back to the roots, but also like a spruced up new version of it. So it has vertical sections. So the outer sections are red, then there's smaller yellow stripes inside of that, and then the center of the flag, like the center third is a navy blue. Centered upon what I assume is a Magnolia blossom, cause I'm smart and can figure out context. But it's a white Magnolia blossom surrounded by white stars. There's a yellow star on the top of that circle. And at the bottom of the circle, it says “in God we trust.”

Betty: Yes. So what are the, how do you feel about this flag? Do you like it? Do you not like it, neutral or have some criticisms?

Quinn: I would say first reaction, I like it. I especially like the center piece with the navy blue and the white flower. I'm not particularly a fan of it saying “in God we trust” on it, both because I have like somewhat ideological problems with that. But also just because I think that it would look cleaner with just the stars and not having writing on it. I do like the, the gold star at the top because it's a cool feature of it, and because I just saw a point that that is reflecting Indigenous tribes in Mississippi, which is very cool. I'm not as big of a fan of the red and yellow slash gold pieces. I assume those have significance to them. I'm not sure what that is yet. I'm sure you're going to tell me, so I'm not saying I have any problem with the significance. I don't know what it is yet, but aesthetically, I think it would look better if it was just the dark blue background.

Betty: Right, yeah, no, that's a very, I would say, good design assessment. I just want to, sorry, I just want to back to one thing I said earlier, the representative who proposed the bill was Democratic, but he was supported by his Republican counterparts.

Quinn: Oh, noted.

Betty: In any case, here are the set of rules from the North American Vexillology Association. Flag designers kind of came up with these five simple rules of good flag design. The first one is simplicity. The flag should be simple. So the idea is they should be able, you should be able to draw it from memory. If you're a five-year-old in kindergarten, you should be able to draw it. Maybe not well, but you know, you should be able to. And one thing that 99% Invisible mentioned on their podcast is that it should be so that if it's, if you draw it on a one and a half inch by one inch rectangle and hold it far away, it should be recognizable. So, you know, we can get back to that later, but two is that it should be symbolic. So there should be a unifying visual concept of the elements. Your design should mean something. It shouldn't be random, what a concept. So the third one is a little controversial. It says no more than three colors. So you should only have between one and three colors. If you have more than that, it doesn't mean you get fired as a flag designer, but you have to have a really, really good reason. And, number four is going back to what you said, no text, coat of arms or seals. So like, don't put words on your flag. Like if you, if you just imagine if like the US flag had like “America" written all over it.

Quinn: Honestly, kind of surprised that it doesn’t.

Betty: Like a big exclamation mark, hashtag 1776, like don't put that on your flag. And number five, it should be unique. So don't make it very similar to somebody else's flag, especially a really well known flag because they're going to think you're this other place, just like how I, I mean, I don't think anybody would mistake Liberia for the United States, but… a little too similar. Although, you know, they do, they do have a connection to the US so that is understandable. But in any case, so those are the five rules of good flag design. It doesn't mean like, again, it doesn't mean like you have to a hundred percent follow all of these rules. But it's kind of like, you know, if you're an artist, and you just started to learn how to paint, you should probably follow all the rules before you decide I'm going to be Picasso and like break every rule. So that's kind of, you know, that's kind of what this is for. So yeah, in terms of the Mississippi flag, it essentially follows some of the rules. So it is, I would say it is relatively simple. It's actually a little bit more complex than the flag they just had, but you know, it's probably still—not probably, definitely still a better flag, you know, for historic reasons. So it is simple. I think if you hold it far away, it is recognizable. You could argue that maybe the flower is a little small, but anyway. So it is symbolic, their symbols, the Magnolia, the stars, even the “in God we trust”, I guess, technically does represent something. And then no more than three colors, it does technically break that rule because there is red, yellow, blue, and white. So, you know. But again, it’s not like, that's not like you don't have to a hundred percent follow it all the time.

Quinn: I feel like specifically with the way they use it in this design, because yellow seems to be used as like accent points versus like the white, blue and red are used very prominently. So I feel like they would get away with that one in this rule list.

Betty: And I think it, the yellow is actually kind of good because almost every state uses red, white, and blue, putting the yellow in there, you actually help out with rule number five, which is uniqueness. Like you won’t get confused with other American state flags that use red, white, and blue because you have a little bit of a uniqueness in there. So I would say in this case, you know, if I was a Supreme court judge of flags, I would say I wrote that the yellow is acceptable. So of course it totally breaks rule number four, which is no text. And the thing is I personally do think rule number four is one of those rules that you really should pretty much never break. Like I so far can't think of a good reason to put text on there. Of course, lots of flags do break this role, but one thing is, if you look at like national flag—so of course, like later, I'm going to show you some flags that are more like state provincial, local, and a lot of them are horrible, but international flags are usually—there’s a little bit more thought and people are like, hey, let's not put, let's not do a really terrible flag. So if you think of international flags, I don't think any country has words on them. Okay, Brazil’s flag has words, but I would say that's, that's still, if I were the designer for the Brazilian flag, I would find a way to take out those words.

Quinn: Well, I think it's notable that you have to sit and think like, do any national flags have words on them? Because what we're talking about, where like flags need to be recognizable from a distance. And if you have words on the flag, like, unless you just write I dunno, like “Jeb!” on it in giant letters and that's the whole flag, you know, it's going to be really small. So when we think of the flag in our heads, we don't even think of the words being there, which I don't think is a good thing. Like I think that means that they're getting lost in the design because when I, when I tried to like visualize the Brazil flag and I'm like, there are words on that? And then I looked at it more closely and I'm like, oh, there are words inside that white stripe. I just never think about them because I'm just looking at sort of the overall design and not looking at those tiny details that you can't see from a distance.

Betty: Yes, exactly. Even this Mississippi flag when you hold it far away. So actually right now on my screen, there's a preview of the flag of that CNN article. And if I back up from the computer a couple of feet, I don't really see “in God we trust.” Like if I just looked at it, I would've think it was like, just stars all around. So yeah, you're right. Like the, the flags themselves, the flags that have words on it, it’s kind of like, even the ones that do you don't even, it's irrelevant because you don't, you don't realize it.

Quinn: So we're now looking at this whole page of the flags of the various states in the United States of America. And before we go into what you were going to tell me about, I just want to do a couple of like quick first impressions, and then you can judge my flag design sensibilities. But most of them are hideous. We'll start there. Just, most of them are just like really over complicated crests on the center of flags that are usually blue or maybe have some really aggressive stripes. The flag of Hawaii has the Union Jack on it for some reason. Not sure about that. The ones I like, I want to throw a couple out there. I don't think Alaska’s is perfect, but I do quite like Alaska's, it's got stars on it in that outline of the Big Dipper. I really like the flag of New Mexico. I think that's very cool. It's very different than the rest of them and it stands out. The flag of Texas… it’s a bit garish, but I think it's, the design is cool. I think it's better than the sort of like standard crest in the middle of the center flag that most everybody else is doing. And while the California flag does have California Republic written in giant letters, very cool bear design, I will say. Big fan of the bear. Those are my, those are my first impressions of looking at all of them together.

Betty: Yeah. Are you, so yeah, since like I'm not American, like when I first came across this page, I obviously didn't recognize—other than I think Texas, I've never seen any of these flags before in my life. Like, are you familiar with any of these flags? 

Quinn: So I am familiar with the flag of California because I think California is so culturally sort of explosive across the whole country that that flag is used in sort of like clothing designs and stuff more frequently. I was familiar with the flag of Alaska as well, because I think, I don't actually know why, but I've seen that one before a few times. I've seen Maryland's flag, but only because people talk about how ugly it is. And then the Texas flag cause Texas, but pretty much the rest of them, if I've ever seen them before, like I'm sure I've seen some of the other ones before, but they didn't really stick with me. Besides like Maine, which is where I'm from, but it's ugly.

Betty: Yeah. Oh, actually, hold on. I don't even know if I've looked at Maine’s.

Quinn: It's not, it does not stand out on this page.

Betty: Definitely doesn't stand out. And it breaks like every single rule.

Quinn: I think Maine should do what California did, but with a moose instead, because there's this very small moose in the design of Maine's flag, but I think it should be like, the whole flag is just like this gorgeous moose. That's my vote. 

Betty: What is a Dirigo? [trying again to pronounce] Dirigo?

Quinn: Oh, that's the state motto of Maine. It means like “I guide.” I don't really know why that's the motto of Maine, but it's on our flag.

Betty: I find quite funny that the state of Washington literally has a picture of Washington on their flag.

Quinn: That is very funny. That looks like it would be like a pop art design in a museum. It does not look like that should be the real flag of Washington.

Betty: Yeah. Like, so when you're in this, like zoomed out, like in the thumbnail version, which is how it should be viewed, it's very hard to see, his face is actually really small on the flag, but if you like open up the high-rise version, you see like his face is actually, has like the pop art like Roy Lichtenstein, like dots on it. Like, it looks like a comic book and it's like when I first saw this I'm like, this can't be the real flag of Washington, but it is. And so, yeah, I guess another flag that I do wanted to just mention is your current state, the state of Illinois’s flag. It’s a white flag, which I don't really—so one is one of the rules is to use four colors, I don't really recommend using white as the background, or like, like 85% of your flag is white. Like, that's just not a good color to use for a flag. Unless you want to be like “we're surrender monkeys” or something. And so in the middle is what looks like a crest, but it's an eagle who's holding a ribbon in his mouth, I guess. It says “state sovereign, national union.” And there is a, I'm assuming this eagle is a he, I have no idea. He has a shield that has star and stripes, and then there's some grass there, he is sitting on a rock. It says 1868, 1818. There's some more grass on the ground, which looks like it's actually a grass on a beach. And then there's some water in the background with little ripples. And then there is a sun that's shooting out what looks like beams of light rays like there's no tomorrow. And then it says giant Illinois in blue on the bottom.

Quinn: Okay. So I got to tell you, I'm not sure I've ever seen this flag before in my life and I live in Illinois, but we're going to get to why in a moment. Just to check on some background, apparently “state sovereignty, national union” is the state motto of Illinois. Another thing I didn't know. And the years 1818, 1868 are the years that Illinois became a state and the year that this seal was designed, I guess this whole thing, is the seal of Illinois.

Betty: Okay.

Quinn: Here's my thing about this, that information doesn't need to be on the flag. I guess it's cool that the state seal has the state motto on it, like go off, I guess, but why does that need to be—why does all of that need to be stamped on the flag? I didn't even know that and I live here. Obviously it's not helping me learn this information.

Betty: Like guys, it’s a flag. It's not a history, the history book of the state of Illinois, like we're not looking for like your state's history literally written on your flag.

Quinn: Before we move into Canada, can we talk about the Chicago flag for a minute?

Betty: Yes please.

Quinn: Y’all, this is where it gets good. I guess I have seen the Illinois flag before probably, but I don't care about it, it doesn’t matter because the Chicago flag is vitally important and it slaps. So the Chicago flag, if you haven't seen it, it is on a white background. Sorry, Betty. But there are two pale blue horizontal stripes toward the center thirds of the flag design. And then in the center, are these four six-pointed red stars. Those four stars represent these four historical events in Chicago, which are at the establishment of Fort Dearborn, the great Chicago fire, the World's Columbian Exposition, and the Century of Progress Exposition. It is hard to overstate how culturally prevalent this flag is for Chicago. It's basically the, I mean, like any flag is like, obviously the symbol of whatever it's symbolizing, but like, it really is the symbol of Chicago in the hearts and minds of Chicagoans. People get tons of clothing and merchandise with the flag. People get it tattooed on themselves, like not infrequently. It's just this gorgeous symbol of the city. And while there are like national flags that are obviously like have huge symbolic meaning to the people who live in that country, I feel like state flags rarely have that kind of meaning, except maybe in like Texas or California, where it is more prevalent. And I've certainly never, I don't know of any other cities that have this except for Chicago. So I'm a big fan of it. And I think it's really cool. And I also like have Chicago flag stickers and stuff.

Betty: Yeah, I will actually say I probably off the top of my head I can't think of any city flags in the world, except I happen to know Toronto's cause I live here. The only city flag that I can visualize without you like telling me is Chicago, so good job guys.

Quinn: I’ve checked this before, because I got into this whole conversation about city flags, because I care about Chicago's city flags so much. And a lot of cities do have them, not like every single city, but like major cities really do have them, or even like mid-size cities really do have flags, but they're very rarely like as sort of in popular culture and in like everyday life as the Chicago flag is.

Betty: Definitely, I will say: one, the white here I will say is acceptable. So again, that's not like a cardinal rule or anything. And so, and also the white isn't like 80% of the flag. It's maybe like half or maybe 60%. So that's, that's fine.

Quinn: It's like part of the, the sort of stripe design that it lays out. It's not just like a thing in the center.

Betty: And of course, like there are lots of flags that have white as a part of it, you know, France famously, but you know, France famously also have completely white flags. Sorry. That was a bad joke. So anyway…

Quinn: I'm ready to move on to Canada now.

Betty: With Canada, actually I will start with, let’s start good here. Let's start on a good note. While we're still talking about the flag of Chicago. So I live in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and we have, I would say in my opinion, an okay flag. Like I actually do think Chicago's is better, but as flags go and as municipal flags go, it's not bad.

Quinn: This is interesting.

Betty: Yeah. So Toronto is flag has a blue, mostly blue background. There's two white, I wanna say upside down Ls is what seems like, it swoops across from the top two corners into the middle, but not quite the middle it's a little bit off-center. And then the two stripes go all the way down to the bottom. And then at the very bottom, there is a Canadian, or bright red Canadian maple leaf. So do you, I don't think you've seen this flag, but have you seen this flag?

Quinn: Oh, I have not seen this flag before, no.

Betty: That is totally okay. I wouldn't expect anyone who doesn't live—actually probably most people who live in Toronto don't even know that this is our flag, so that's totally okay. So this, picture is the Toronto City Hall. It's located actually just about like a hundred meters, not even from where I work in downtown Toronto. And it was designed, it was like designed and built in, I think the late 1960s. And it's a super iconic building in Canada. I mean, again, probably more so people in Toronto and surrounding areas are aware of it. It's not like the most famous building in the world or anything, but it is, like a lot of Canadians know this building. It's very famous. It's very iconic, very well-known. And the two swoops are, is our city hall.

Quinn: That is interesting because this is a flag that was like designed recently enough that like a contemporary, iconic image of the city can be used in it, which I think is not the typical case for a lot of these flags.

Betty: Yeah. And of course, the swoop also, like the way it's cropped in this flag makes the flags has a giant T right in the middle, and the T stands for Toronto. [laughs] Sorry.

Quinn: You're so pleased!

Betty: And the maple leaf, you get it. So, but again, like, I think it is, it is a little like weird looking. Again, mostly because it's trying to incorporate an image of a piece of architecture and, and I do still think like Chicago's flag is more symbolic and there's more like story behind it. However, I think it's cool. And again, I can't think of too many examples of someone trying to incorporate the design of architecture into a flag. So while, while US state flags are mostly very ugly, so are, I would say every Canadian provincial flag with the exception of one, Eh, maybe two.

Quinn: Yeah. You know, these are at least more distinct from each other. It's not all, there's just the kind of like crest on a blue background, but they are all ugly in their very own special way.

Betty: Yeah. So, do you, do you have any that you think are, could be considered good?

Quinn: I will say I like the Quebec flag. That is the one that stands out to me on sort of like first look at these.

Betty: Yeah. That would be one of the probably only two that I would pick as well that is, you know, acceptable. But again, there's a reason because, Quebec is our special, special province that's different from everyone in almost every way. And they, they do like to represent that in every way possible, including their flag. So, you know, of course it's a different color from everyone. The Quebec flag is blue against white. There is a white cross in the middle with two for blue equally divided quadrants on, each quad on each corner. And in each of the blue is a fleur de lis, which is a French symbol. So it's yeah, they do, they want to be like, “we are so French. We are not, we are not like the rest of them who don't speak French.”

Quinn: Hey, I've been to that province. They are so French. 

Betty: So yeah, again, I'm not saying it's bad or anything, I'm just saying they're very interested in people knowing that they're French. So, and then the only other one that I think is, could be considered like good is Nunavut’s flag. And that flag is, has, like has a yellow on left side and white on the right side. It's divided into, in two in the middle by an inuksuk, a rock sculpture. And there's a tiny blue star on the top. So while it does have actually five colors, technically cause the inuksuk is outlined in black, it's one of the better ones. Cause you know, it is simple. It is more, much more distinctive. There are no words on them. Although Canada does a pretty good job of not having words, but we do have a lot of seals and crests that are so complicated that there's no way you can ever draw them. But again, Nunavut’s also very, very different from everyone else. It's the, their population is almost exclusively Inuit. And also Nunavut only became a territory in 1999. So the flag was designed more recently. And I just assume looking at the fiasco of Mississippi in 1860, that people back then maybe were not as, maybe back then they haven't developed a design standards yet.

Quinn: I will say, this is a cool flag, looking at it, I also approve of this one… because I am the ultimate authority on flags now. I learned about flag design half an hour ago, and now I'm an expert.

Betty: For sure. You and I are the supreme court justices of flags. Well, you know, we get to a point others as well as decide ultimately on what is the best looking flag. I would just say, the only other, the only other flags that I kind of wanted to talk about is definitely worldwide. Well on a, definitely on an international scale, there are a lot of—there are much better flags. I think some of people's favorite flags are for example, Japan. it is very simple, very symbolic, very recognizable and most people immediately know that's Japan. And I would say the other one that's great is Canada.

Quinn: The Canadian flag is pretty good.

Betty: Yeah. And the thing is like, I like the US flag because I do think symbolically it is, it does a really good job with symbolism and obviously it's very unique. And it definitely, you know, only has three colors, but the one thing is that it is. It is a little bit complicated. Like, you know, when I was a kid, I grew up in China, we just had to draw five yellow stars. And Canadian—the maple leaf is a little bit harder to draw than stars, but you know, you can make it work. But if I had to draw 50 stars and I don't even know how many stripes exactly, but like, that's, that's too much, like when I was five anyway.

Quinn: Yeah, there's definitely a lot going on. And while I know that, like the numbers are symbolic, I feel like there has to be a way that like we could simplify things down, but still have them represent those same kinds of things. I don't know. Also I personally support making a few other things states. And so I personally don't think there should only be 50 states. So I think we should move beyond the sort of like star for every state symbolism and like move on to something else maybe. But that's just me. Look, Canada has a bunch of provinces and they get away with just their maple leaf. Like we can, we can change things up. It's okay.

Betty: Yeah. We don't have 13 maple leaves on our flag.

Quinn: That would be so funny.

Betty: Actually, we probably should. But some people have proposed that, you know, instead of the maple leaf, we should have a beaver, but again, I think a beaver is a little bit harder to draw, but it is definitely much more hilarious.

Quinn: What if we just had like an eagle. Just like a big eagle.

Betty: No, I, you should definitely have the Illinois eagle. Exactly that one. 

Quinn: Just the Illinois eagle and in the background, instead of it being plain white, there's 50 stars.

Betty: Exactly. And, and yeah, so I would definitely say that, you know, for the next referendum for the next election, you guys should do some more propositions, but you know, one of them should be amending the national flag.

Quinn: Well, I didn't say this when we were looking at the United States flags overall, but I also do actually really like the new Mississippi flag. And I think it stands out among US flags now. And so this gives me hope that we'll be able to continue to make improvements to not just remove hateful symbols from our flags, but also just to design them better and to sort of update them with the times. So thank you so much for listening to this episode of Pictorial. You can find our show notes at relay.fm/pictorial, and you can find us on Twitter or Instagram @PictorialPod, where we'll be posting a bunch of the flags that we talked about today. If you want to, you can also find me on Twitter or Instagram @aspiringrobotfm.

Betty: And you can find me on Twitter or Instagram @articulationsV. And I'm also on YouTube as ARTiculations. And speaking of YouTube, we also upload these podcast episodes to YouTube, but where you can follow along and laugh at these flags as we talk about them. And as you look at them and see if you like it for yourself.

Quinn: Tattoo them them on your bodies, it’s a great time. Thanks for listening, art enthusiasts.