Design a Flag

Vexillography is the art of designing flags. A good flag is simple, meaningful, and easy to recognize. This article will show you how to design a flag for an organization, a city or even a nation.

Steps

  1. Decide what you want your flag to represent. Is it a micronation, a fictional land or just a club? Your flag should represent your place, and should be easily recognizable.
  2. Choose a shape for your flag. Most flags are rectangular or square. The proportions should be from 1:1.5 to 1:1.67 for a rectangular flag. Your flag doesn't have to be rectangular though. It could be a pennant, square like Switzerland's, or two overlapping triangles like Nepal's.
  3. Choose the basic design. Some of the most common designs are bicolors, tricolors, quarters, stripes and borders. The flag can also be a solid color but if it is make sure it has a unique symbol of a different color. You can also have a rectangle in the upper left hand corner called a canton (like the American flag) where you can put a symbol.
  4. Use two to four colors. If you use any more it will be confusing. The most common colors for flags are black, blue, green, red, white, and yellow. Just make sure all the colors have meaningful symbolism in them. For example if your location is near water, you could have blue in your flag to symbolize the water.
    • Black- determination, ethnic heritage, bravery, and/or defeating one's enemies.
    • Blue- freedom, vigilance, perseverance, loyalty, justice, prosperity, peace, and/or patriotism.
    • Green- the Earth, agriculture, luck, and/or fertility.
    • Red- courage, communism, revolution, hardiness, blood, and/or valor.
    • White- peace, purity, mountain snow, and/or innocence.
    • Yellow- the sun, wealth, and/or justice.
    • Pink- Feminism
    • Gray- selflessness
  5. Add a symbol. This step is optional, but having a symbol will help people tell your flag from another similar one. The symbol should be meaningful too. An eagle could symbolize freedom or power; a star could stand for divinity or honor.
  6. Finished. Show your flag and ask for opinions from family and friends. You could even make it on fabric yourself and fly it.



Tips

  • Your flag should be simple enough for a child to draw from memory.
  • You should be able to see everything on your flag from a distance.
  • You are not limited to the six main colors. You could use orange, brown or even pink!

Warnings

  • Remember that the more complicated your flag is, the more expensive it will be if you want it to be made into a real flag.
  • Don't make the obverse (front) side different than the reverse side, as this will be more expensive.
  • Try to avoid using text on your flag. Even if you only use one letter, it will look backwards on the reverse side (unless you make it two layers). Of course, you can make a letter into a cool symbol, like on Ottawa's flag.
  • Don't put a seal or coat of arms on your flag. This makes it too complicated. Keep your symbol nice and simple.

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