Designing a Flag
I don’t know why my elementary teachers and parents approved, but for one of my Science Fairs, my topic and booth was all about flags. National flags, state flags, and, since I was living in Canada, provincial flags. I had posters of every flag of the world, discussed the roles of flags, such as communication through semaphore, borrowed and hung real flags from friends and neighbors, and cut out hundreds of paper rectangles so that booth visitors could design and draw their own flag.
I didn’t win the Science Fair. We all know it goes to the kid whose parents put an inordinate amount of time into their child’s project. What’s more, perhaps the analysis of flags wasn’t sufficiently rooted in a traditional science domain. Still, the older I get, the more I think that good flag design does require some aspects of both art and science (and in particular social science). Contemporary events surely tell us we are cognizant and sensitive to symbols, statues, and icons, and, more importantly, their meaning, whether for good or bad. Due to the ongoing re-evaluation of these symbols in the summer of 2020, Mississippi recently passed legislation to change its flag and thus remove the confederate emblem from the top left of their state flag. Mississippi has started a process to redesign the flag and will allow its citizens to cast their votes in a referendum for one or more designs generated by a commission tasked with leading the re-design effort.
I’ve never been able to vote for a flag but it would be a much more visually exciting ballot to see than the completely text-based ones. Also, I really won’t have any input (or vote) in the matter, as I’m not from Mississippi, but if I was on the flag re-design commission, I’d keep a couple of requirements and constraints in the forefront as guiding principles. So, from a designer’s perspective, here are just five principles or requirements I’d push as a member of this flag redesign commission.
1. Encode meaning everyone can be proud of into the flag.
Let’s admit it. We’re all different. We all have different things we’d like to remember (or not remember) when we look at our flags. What someone might value another might denigrate. It’s hard to keep all the people happy all the time. Thus, the flag re-design commission has quite a challenge to find something that everyone can get behind, but I think it’s possible. There are many more things in common between all people than things that are different. I think they are up for the challenge.
The contrarians will likely say that nothing can be found that is in common across all people. I would respectively disagree. Health, Life, Freedom, Geography, Astronomy, Pursuit of Happiness, are just a few that I think everyone can get behind. In fact, I think that’s why we see lots of stars, suns, moons, oceans, skies, and water in current flags. Those designers also wanted something universal for their people
Additionally, perhaps other common things to consider first and foremost have nothing to do with history but instead, have everything to do about the future. In any case, the future is something that we will all have in common and that will unite us whether we want it to or not. How does one design a flag with the future in mind? I’m not sure but I think it would be exciting to try. Reviewing the current flags, I can’t find one that looks forward to the future in an obvious way but I do know a lot that looks back to their past. That’s not all bad either but clearly some historical figures are controversial and may need a different home than one’s own flag.
2. Keep the flag’s logos/shapes simple and clean.
When I became a US citizen and was given my first US flag to wave at the emotional conclusion of the ceremony, I was struck with the simplicity – just stars and stripes. Other countries seem to include text, phrases, and highly-detailed animals or beasts on their flags. There are, of course, other opportunities to include mottos, Latin phrases, slogans, and detailed pictures (and one of them is on a country’s currency), but a flag is not one of them, in my opinion. If a flag’s symbols are sufficiently simple, they can be incorporated into many other things like clothes, hats, decorations, etc. that can remind people of the freedoms they hopefully enjoy more often.
There are some really neat and highly detailed drawings on many flags of the world but I think those are more challenging to adopt into the common culture that makes use of other physical objects like stickers, key chains, and temporary face make-up. The complex logos that looked etched or carved can look fantastic on stationary or when presented up-close, but are less clear when on a flag pole a mile away. These icons don’t transfer to other elements in society, so keeping the shapes simple and thus potentially large can maximize the acceptance of the flag’s symbology and meaning into everyday life. This is probably why companies like Coke, Pepsi, Starbucks, and even Google have gone through some simplification of their logos in recent years; it’s easier to generate a simple logo at various sizes and incorporate it into other products when the logo is straightforward. The Google logo looks very consistent a few millimeters tall or on a massive billboard. The same should be for flags.
3. Open the design space by considering different shapes.
We all love Nepal’s flag. For those that somehow have made it until now without ever seeing a chart showing the flags of the world, Nepal’s flag is comprised of two triangles (with some overlap) and stands refreshingly distinctive in contrast to all the other rectangular flags of all the other nations. I think we can surmise why rectangular flags dominate, which must include reasons related to cost, manufacturability, wearing it as a cape, and installation constraints on vertical and horizontal poles, to name a few. But these all pale in comparison to the pride a Nepalese must feel when they see their unique and enviable flag admired by tourists (and anyone looking at a chart of flags).
To be honest, I’m reminded of the Nepalese flag every time I see the strings of prayer flags in many pictures of mountaineering trails to Mount Everest. The combination of two triangles brings to my mind an image of a string of flags blowing in the wind waving onto themselves. I also see mountain peaks in the Nepalese flag, especially when it’s hung vertically (either the positive or negative space). In contrast, little comes to my mind due to the rectangular shapes for most of the other flags of the world.
As a delegate on the flag re-design commission, I would encourage that some of the flag concepts have some different shapes to consider: chamfer or filleted corners, crenels or merlons (i.e. castle battlements) on the far edge, and maybe even removing material from inside the outer shape (e.g. a square cut-out from the middle). There are many other flag shapes that could work. Admittedly, there are pros and cons to all of these, but at least we should include these different shapes as part of the design space.
4. Take time with the color selection.
Color is loaded word right now. Scientific studies have demonstrated that people respond to colors very differently when they see them. For example, red has been associated with increasing one’s hunger and can be found often in restaurants, while green might encourage creativity and is found in many design studios and in conference rooms used for brainstorming. Other colors have different potential influences. Many organizations have leveraged these in various ways to subtly communicate or emphasize to their customers one or more of their values (e.g. green -> environmentally friendly, blue -> trustworthy or reliable). What complicates it, even more, is that color is used with different meanings by different people. In the US, red is associated with stop signs, major warnings, and negative values or aversions (e.g. think of the phrase “our company is in the red”). On the other hand, in China, red is considered good luck and used all over the place as a positive color for success and beauty.
In a multi-cultural, melting pot that is the United States of America, a lot of people could potentially interpret different colors differently - and not all of them are positive. My guess is that Mississippi might stay away from using any shades or hues of black or white on any part of the flag. But the flag commission should still take a look at the research of other colors as each one of them does evoke different emotions. It’s not going to be easy with so many agendas out there, so hopefully, everyone will realize they’ll have to compromise a little, meet in the middle, and use this as the first of many opportunities to forge a new path into the future together. Maybe multiple shades of black and white (and other colors) are a good idea after all?
5. Plan to consider redesigning the flag again in 25 years (or when it’s legislated)
I share this potential requirement last because it’s something that no one really talks about. Similar to how we have required elections every 2 or 4 years to keep or remove various politicians from positions, as specified by the constitution, I think we should have legislation that the flag needs to be revisited every 20 or 25 years (or some other time frame – 50 years?). Why not evaluate other things that represent us? Not just our government representatives? Maybe the historians will be annoyed with this break from tradition, but they would also be the first to admit that things change over time and that change can be good. Furthermore, we can always vote to keep the status quo.
Personally, even though I like the current US flag, maybe I’m in the minority. I don’t think any of us know, without a referendum, how we collectively view the flag. If, in fact, a majority of us feel that the flag no longer represents us then there really should be a way to review and renew this symbol. We are hopefully growing as a society and perhaps our symbols can evolve and grow with us too.
