Flags & Vexillology

[Coo Coo Bird]

And then there was this thing from when i lived back east
(At least i think it is? )

Are you sure that's not a heart medication logo?

 

[Zaryiu2]

Are you sure that's not a heart medication logo?

I'm pretty sure

 

[Jaded Optimist]

I'm surprised how nice the Airdrie flag is compared to what Airdrie is like in person.

 

[ComStar]

Banja Luka, de facto capital of the Serbian part of Bosnia has a decent enough flag, if a little boring. The old roman/turkish Kastel, the river flowing through the city and the local dajak boats. Pretty standard stuff.



Their coat of arms however, holy shit


Here we have the standard flag on a shield with a crown. But then, on a field of chestnut and linden leaves, we have Petar Kočić* on the left and Ban** Svetislav Milosavljević on the right.

While Kočić is modestly dressed, old Milosavljević is rocking full evening dress, the order of the White Eagle (possibly with swords***), the Order of St. Sava with sash, and a nondescript star-shaped order.

Their flagpoles are also crowned with crowns of thorns.

This is so bad it's kind of hilarious.


* A somewhat famous writer, rabble-rouser and politician
** a kind of viceroy
*** The order of the White Eagle and White Eagle with Swords are separate and very similar, which wasn't confusing at all to research...


*FINAL GODDAMN EDIT* Fucking orders and medals...

 

[Mister Qwerty]

 

[Black Man Underwear]

I actually despise the overly simplistic redesigns. Most look like corporate powerpoint presentation art. The green and wavy lines especially hit me weird, as if they are making a flag for a new brand of diet soda or a new band aid.

Take the tricolor, it shoehorns in a white green blue tricolor with no real meaning beyond being generic. Meanwhile the army-style pennant on the side of it is an improvement by miles. This is where Grey is being a nigger, he can't see the clearly better flag on it, instead focusing on the rainbow collage in front of him. If the designer replaced the tricolor background with just red, or made it red white and blue, it would be provocative, simple, and patriotic. Instead the artist goes for a corporate color scheme that does not shock or evoke patriotic feelings.

If nothing else they could have given a single fuck and emulated an old carpet or something from a native tribe, instead they copy-paste every other new flag design, pretending to know what a tricolor is.

Grey's "North star top star" and "muh seal on bedsheet" autism is why I stopped watching his channel. He wants every country's flag to look like it was made by a lesbian as her new logo for a pet food brand, because that's what it is. These aren't good flags, they're shit. They mean nothing to the people who fly them and represent nothing to the people who designed them. Nobody will die for or under any of these flags. They follow no tincture rules, and ignore heraldry entirely. A seal on a bedsheet is still better than whatever 8 color collage these queers shart out.

Even city flags here are better than state flags. Take a look:

Spoiler: city flags

Baltimore's flag is based off its namesake's coat of arms, Chicago's stars symbolize 4 great events in its history, Phoenix's flag is a pun, St. Louis's fleur de lis represents its French regal namesake. D.C.'s flag extrapolates its namesake's arms. ALL OF THESE EXCEPT ONE CAN BE MADE INTO SIMPLE, RECOGNIZABLE HERALDRY.

None of them could pull together to make ANYTHING based in history or culture? ALL you can come up with is "muh mountayns, muh sky, muh watah"? At least Utah redesigned its flag using a beehive, a historical and entrenched symbol in the Mormon religion.

I'll attach my own redesigns here.

Spoiler: flags

Even these look and feel too corporate for my taste, but at least the first three resemble some kind of Americana. Grey actually proposed a far better flag in an earlier video, one using a Nordic cross. This would be entrenched in their heritage, symbolize something meaningful, and set them apart. Instead, they go for the Alegria artstyle of flag design. Why? Because they are retarded niggermonkeys. Do not leap to the simplest, or else you risk falling into the pit of corporate art.

Look! Even this Redditor gets it!

Minnesota, most ironic of rural states (as it is leftist), has made its decision to be ruled by the retarded, therefore its flag will forever reflect its shallow taste in culture, that of the retarded. It will look like a piece of modern art: uninventive and filled with faggotry, indistinguishable to the uneducated man from any other retarded nigger flag. Every single one has to evoke some natural landscape, like every layman can tell each mountain in your mountain range is distinguishable from one in Switzerland. Every stripe has to be a river or lake, like these don't exist in every other country on Earth.

Pocatello would be an improvement.

If all you take from my unhinged rant is this: before you publish a flag, ask yourself if you could set it to be a powerpoint background without anyone noticing. If you can, congratulations, you've designed a terrible flag.

 

[Big Fat Frog]

I fucking hate the whole premise of redesigning flags, no matter how good or bad looking they are. It’s sad to see the old flags go, because even if they’re ugly they have history and charm to them. These new flags look soulless, and they’re obviously made to appear as “brand icons” and to distance themselves from “evil white supremacy” or some shit. It doesn’t feel like a legitimate reason to replace a flag at all.

 

[Orange Rhymer]

I fucking hate the whole premise of redesigning flags, no matter how good or bad looking they are. It’s sad to see the old flags go, because even if they’re ugly they have history and charm to them. These new flags look soulless, and they’re obviously made to appear as “brand icons” and to distance themselves from “evil white supremacy” or some shit. It doesn’t feel like a legitimate reason to replace a flag at all.

Anything that is redesigned will be redesigned again. Reinterpreted. Democratically (ugh).
Think about that before joining the military.

 

[Haffhart]

For reference, the three finalists:

@Black Man Underwear I get your point but you're a bit MATI. Yes in flaglore there's a split between two styles - "corporate redesign" and "flag nerd's cool concept." The first is regrettably popular right now (especially during the current wave of flag makeovers) but it's not that bad. The new flags of Mississippi and Utah have heraldic meaning for example. This last proposal is good, it has meaning (outline of Minnesota, North Star, snowy forest colors). It doesn't need to be in the federal colors because states can have their own colors.
TLDR: Calm down before posting.

 

[Orange Rhymer]

For reference, the three finalists:

View attachment 5568126

View attachment 5568127

View attachment 5568128

@Black Man Underwear I get your point but you're a bit MATI. Yes in flaglore there's a split between two styles - "corporate redesign" and "flag nerd's cool concept." The first is regrettably popular right now (especially during the current wave of flag makeovers) but it's not that bad. The new flags of Mississippi and Utah have heraldic meaning for example. This last proposal is good, it has meaning (outline of Minnesota, North Star, snowy forest colors). It doesn't need to be in the federal colors because states can have their own colors.
TLDR: Calm down before posting.

You reposted the video, 2 huge pictures (which were referenced in the video), your essay, and then posted TLDR. Put the TL;DR first FFS.

Anyway - every one of those finalist flags is a dollar bin offering by the Governor's brother-in-law. The colors are CY pastels straight out of the Alegria style guide.
I understand @Black Man being sick of this community college art major shit. Also he did refer to his own rant as unhinged.
You can be MATI about a flag. You can legally harass, dox, and even commit acts of violence against a flag (for now). Let him be MATI against an inanimate object.

Cities, States, Countries are supposed to be greater than the art-styles of the Current Year. The seals and emblems must reflect that.
I look at each one of those flags, and get excited for a new Ikea.
But Grey is just looking for something new.

 

[mindlessobserver]

To be fair, the Polaris Tri Color IS an improvement. And before we get autistic about muh land and soil on muh flag, that is usually what is depicted on national flags. The Ukrainian Bicolor is a good example of this. Literally being just the gold of the wheat with the blue Steppe sky above. Which makes a good flag. Japan's flag is literally just the sun in the sky, a reference to the mythological founding of Japan by the Sun Goddess, but still. a simple concept referencing the state in a simple design.

Minnesota doesn't exactly have a brutal history that requires a USA style "blood of the patriots" red stripe. And adopting the Nordic Cross would be...bad. Because the Nordic Cross belongs to countries that were at one point part of the Scandinavian Kingdoms. Minnesota as a state was never a part of those countries, even if a large chunk of people from them ended up in Minnesota.

Tbh, I am just glad the modern art redesigns were rejected in favor of something traditional if simple.

 

[AnOminous]

Tbh, I am just glad the modern art redesigns were rejected in favor of something traditional if simple.

Just be glad Corporate Memphis/Alegria/globohomo hasn't invaded flags. Yet.

 

[mindlessobserver]

Yet. Their working on it. Alot of the redesigns were pure modern art cancer.
Since we are on the subject, this is Minnesotas new state seal.

Which I cannot thumbnail because TOR sucks.

But you can see what I am talking about and hopefully a mod will come along and fix.


Anyway, normally I am reflexively averse to clear native American imagery in current year, as it's usually wokist sophistry, but they made it work here. The Loon is definitely imposing, and the native American name for the region fits historically. So it gets a pass.

 

[AnOminous]

The Loon is definitely imposing, and the native American name for the region fits historically. So it gets a pass.

Stylized animals and things like wheat are really common in even old heraldry.

 

[Romeo]

Yes. The modern concept of a flag was not a thing in the Medieval times, so what you'd see instead of flags are family crests, and land was represented by these crests. Important, powerful rulers who held lots of crowns would had composite crests featuring dozens of extremely disjointed designs matched together. The closest contemporary example is is the Maryland flag, which is a combination of the coat of arms for Calvert and Crossland families.

The HRE had dozens of constituents, so here is the HRE's coat of arms.

Source: https://kiwifarmsaaf4t2h7gc3dfc5ojh...n/members/null.1/#profile-post-comment-548194

@Null, what you said made me want to experiment with some of the U.S. state flags where it is be based on the state seal, or the state's coat of arms. This is to follow the pattern of how flags would follow the coat of arms that represent the region, such as Maryland's flag being based on the coat of arms of two families.

I salvaged ten of the U.S. state flags that I did not like based on their seals.

• U.S. State name
• Alternate state flag based on Seal
• State Seal
• Current state flag

NOTE: All of the flags may be a bit asymmetrical.

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Connecticut	Delaware	Kentucky	Massachusetts

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Missouri	New Jersey	Pennsylvania	Utah

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Virginia	Wisconsin
​	​
​	​
​	​

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My favorites are Massachusetts, Missouri, and New Jersey. Everything else is meh to okay, but if I had to pick the worst, it's Kentucky.

I think most of the issues with picking the state seals to make a flag on is that most state seals are basically paintings containing everything the states' founders can shove in. Therefore, if you convert them into a flag, every flag is basically a painting that nobody can interpret from far away. Too many colors and symbols that it's difficult to piece them together.

Florida	Idaho	Minnesota	New York

Amerimutts lose again. Bongs win again. Not only in flags, but in seals/coat of arms.

 

[Coo Coo Bird]

Kentucky being the Awkward Slowdance State is memorable, at least.

 

[mindlessobserver]

Stylized animals and things like wheat are really common in even old heraldry.

Yeah, so I am with the "fuck the haters" crowd on this one. Minnesota's redesign Commission did a good job. The Polaris Tricolor and the Angry Loon Seal hit all the beats. Easily identified, grounded in the land, and most important of all won't look dated in 100 years.

Also, the reverse triangle guidon is genius. The fact that it works with the simplified map of the State itself is chefs kiss. I like it.

 

[Bionicle of War]

Why couldn't they at least take inspiration from some of the city flags of the same state?



Above is Duluth's flag before they changed it, on the bottom is the flag of the capital, Saint Paul.
Neither flag is exactly perfect, but neither is hideous and they both have interesting symbolism.

 

[mindlessobserver]

They fucked up at the Finish line. It's hideous. Legitimately PowerPoint Clip Art.

 

[Bionicle of War]

They fucked up at the Finish line. It's hideous. Legitimately PowerPoint Clip Art.
View attachment 5579050

Couldn't they at least have made the chevron yellow or green, or at least some color besides light blue? It clashes pretty hard with the darker blue.