*Corrections* to be pinned here! I'll start by adding some nuanced points that couldn't quite fit the script: - My perspective comes as a graphic designer and branding specialist with almost two decades of experience. I've edited and written dozens of design guidelines and likely read hundreds, ranging from broad "visual identity guidelines" to specific ones for everything from vehicle branding, advertising campaigns, motion graphics, signage, wayfinding, app icons, etc. I bring that lens to my critique of GFBF, treating it as if I were approaching it like a design guideline. Though it's not a perfect genre match, I hope this perspective is enlightening, as it's not one I've seen shared on this topic before. - While it's possible some designers did contribute to GFBF uncredited, the broader point is that NAVA is not primarily a design organisation. By their own description, they're "Flag Enthusiasts and Scholars," and Ted Kaye himself has no formal design background. Flag design projects aren't common enough to sustain a dedicated professional niche, let alone a specialist design agency, so it's remarkable how effectively it communicates its ideas about design. - The Brazilian flag has lettering, and I don't think it should be removed. It works for various reasons: a) it's not a nametag, and b) it's not Helvetica. But mostly, it's one of those exceptions. I wouldn't highlight it in a design guideline. - The redesign of the Portuguese government brand identity was rejected not just for aesthetic reasons; there were political reasons too, beyond the scope of this video. - I've used the American spelling "color" because that's how it appears in the original. Try to remain unperturbed. - 9:05 "Destinctive" a typo - mea culpa.
In my understanding, no designers were involved in the creation of GFBF. The last page of the pamphlet lists people whose wisdom Ted Kaye distilled (as he puts it). The names he lists are mostly fellow flag collectors who were on an e-mail list together in the late 1990s and who would meet up periodically.
I'd think Saudi Arabia (or the Taliban, ISIL, or Hamas) is the more obvious "has text on it" example than Brazil. But they're entirely text and it's culturally meaningful calligraphy. The stylization on Iraq's is interesting because it's so different.
Adding letterings to flags, also complicates the manufacturing process, the flag of Saudi Arabia specifically states to manufacture the flags congruently in official usages, in vexillology terms, identical inverse and obverse, to make sure the script is readable on both sides. Such process makes the flag heavy to be flown and be picked up by the wind, as it is essentially two flag with identical, un-flipped charges (design) sewn together. Looking at historical Chinese-Korean war banners, this was also the case. Japanese less, due to reliance on mostly-symmetrical Mon seals, even when Kanji is present within the Mon design. Though it's only done to ensure readability, as despite when flipped, non-Latin-based calligraphy, still maintains its aesthetic value. Latin-based characters suffer due to the writing system is entirely depended on asymmetry, while Kanji is contained within a block. Example, "q, p, b, and d' would look the identical and be mistaken from a distance when flipped.
Rule 1 - Comic sans on all flags Rule 2 - Feature photorealistic prints of local dignitaries Rule 3 - Rectangles are boring, enhance your flag by giving it a unique shape
You flirt with making a competing flag design pamphlet. It would be quite interesting if you were to publish that; it could be a useful source of moderation with the flag redesign people.
I'm such a tease. But honestly - I don't have the bandwidth to dive deeper on this, but I did feel strongly enough to make this video. Hope it inspires others though!
What's missing in the whole flag discourse in our society is a discussion of what state and city flags are even for. The arguments I hear about certain things like lettering or too much detail making a flag less "effective" don't resonate with me because as far as I can tell, flags serve no practical purpose; they're just cultural symbols to represent identity. Whether a certain detail is discernible from a distance is therefore immaterial. And it doesn't matter if the design or symbolism is immediately readable or understandable to a cultural outsider, because it's not about them, it's about the in-group's collective self-expression. But I suspect other people would disagree with me about what a flag's purpose is. This is what we as a society need to hash out when talking about flags. Why do we have a state or city flag? What problems does the existence of the flag solve? I don't mean answering "How is this new design a solution," but rather, "How is the flag itself a solution," i.e. any flag as opposed to no flag. We have to answer those questions before we can decide how good a given design is, or whether certain elements (e.g. lettering) are appropriate to include. Until then we'll all just be talking past each other. Thank you for the mention! And thank you for making this video. I'm glad a greater variety of views on flag design is being expressed after the GFBF monoculture of the past decade.
Your video was very impassioned and raised many points I hadn't considered before, so thank you for making it too. I think what you mention about a flag's purpose is a key challenge with flag design. There's no actual international authority on flags, only "enthusiast" groups. As cultural symbols, they really are a wide scope of different case-by-case scenarios - hence the footwear analogy. How do you weigh the needs and goals of different stakeholders in a project like a state flag redesign? It's not a simple question. Anyway, the rabbit hole goes deep. This was originally intended to only be a short video addressing your question on simplicity as a design virtue, but your video really stuck with me and it got me thinking deeper about some of the ways that GFBF is misapplied or ill equipped to address these projects. So thanks for inspiring this video, which I hope in turn can spark more conversation on the topic!
Historically the idea was to be recognised on ships from a distance and I guess the modern version would be getting recognised in a display at a parliament? Which isn't quite as crucial lol
Enjoy and didn't enjoy your video and your take. I feel like history is always changing, and it is a representation of the people now and their ideals. We cannot hold history as the proper path to do things for the people in the past who didn't always think that way! Either they held on to the past and preserved tradition or progressively upturned the old helm. We are revitalizing these symbols for modern people. In 100 years, people will continue to use them as representations of themselves, or they will bulldoze our grand efforts into something new anyway. The "seals on the bedsheet" were most often hurriedly made representations in the past, borrowing from another tradition of seals and heraldry to quickly make a flag that would suffice. Should maintain their poor decisions or separate the seals from the flag; administering importance to each in their own respective zone? I'm really curious about your take on Chinese Provinces and their lack of flags. I feel like the American zealot would be vexilogically angry that they aren't represented properly! Through Chinese culture, flags weren't a thing in the western sense. Today, they still aren't much of a thing except within the military and as a national identity. I don't know where I'm going with this, I'm just curious on your take on the subject and how it would it the debate.
I'd definitely disagree. There are a lot of symbols that can convey identity - seals, coats of arms, mottos, even songs. What makes flags unique among them is that flags can strongly communicate identity at a glance. The Prägnanz and distinctiveness that make a good flag distinguishable as a piece of cloth on a flagpole, even from a distance and under low-visibility conditions, also make it a great visual identification tool in a lot of other circumstances where you have to let people who you are as a group. Yes, not every element needs to be distinctive and prägnant - the motto and the stars on the Brazilian flag are a good example. But even there, the green background, golden diamond and blue circle already do the heavy lifting of visual communication. You can certainly adopt a flag that lacks distinctive and easily discernible as a symbol, but then it fails as a communication tool.
I think the "a child could be able to draw it from memory" way of expressing principle 1 is more useful than principle 1 by itself, if you interpret it in a nuanced way. Like, the kid doesn't have to be able to draw it perfectly, just well enough that you can tell what flag it's supposed to be. Which also means the flag has to be distinctive and unconfusing enough to be remembered in the first place; think of how many European flags are easy to get mixed up with each other because they're just palette swaps of the same ultra-basic design.
The thing about European flags is that they are so basic a child could draw them but also clearly distinct them from one another. The colours have become the distinctive 'details' which are easy to tell apart. (Exceptions like Slovakia/Slovenia or Romania/Moldova/Andorra exist, but are besides the point)
Children can draw most EU flags very easily. It's just 3 colors next to each other. They struggle way harder when they try to draw the UK flag for example.
@@tim..indeed I never had a problem drawing the Union Jack as a child. But if you told me to draw the flags of Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and Norway I couldn't tell you which flag has which colors A flag needs to be distinct. No flag is confused for the American or Canadian flags. And I don't think anyone is confusing the Union Jack for the North Macedonia flag
So refreshing to hear the perspective of someone who actually knows about design. So many of the flagsperts have no real design knowledge or training so their theories are just based on half-informed feelings based on a very limited set of case studies.
The idea that flag design should be based on case studies rather than the feelings the flag evokes is the exact mindset that leads these people to this foolishness. Trying to distil art into a set of best practices and committee decisions is how you create minimalist corporate logos and NAVA flags.
@@_xeere The point is not that these rules need to be followed, it's that Linus is offering an ACTUAL graphic designer's perspective on what "best practices" should be like.
@@JJMcCullough How many flags has he designed? While the technical knowledge of design is a good thing in this discussion, simply doing something similar is not a qualification. The original author of the rules probably knew a lot more about flags than Linus, and yet what he produced was of little, or perhaps negative, value.
I've always found it interesting how people are so quick to bash the "minimalist logo" trend, but everyone seems to like e.g. the Japanese prefecture flags. Instead of "seals on a bedsheet", we now have "logos on a rectangle".
I can't quite tell most of them apart but I feel like it's something I could easily memorise just cos the colours are so distinctive, I remember Hiroshima cos it's purple with three arrows and their soccer team is SanFrecce Hiroshima for example
@@justinw1554 exactly. And the prefecture flags additionally make sense in a simple form because they fit together as a set. If a single US state redesigns its flag, then it has to stand on its own. But if the US decided to redesign every state flag at once, then there would be a good case to treat them as a set with a coherent overarching style. Which in turn lends itself to using a fairly simple design pattern.
@@justinw1554 Actually, a lot of modern prefectural seals aren't like the clan Mon, but are really stylized versions of Kanji or just regular logo designs. There's nothing particularly Mon-derived in the flag of Aomori, for instance, but it is indeed, just reflective of Modern era design trends as used by designers within Japan's cultural sphere.
@@DNeonLampBut he still HATES the California flag, despite it even GFBF giving it as an example of a good design despite breaking a lot of rules. Which I’m like, sure, if you want to put it in C-tier with the other “not amazing but at least interesting and distinctive” flags I understand, but he’s like “NO! F Tier! Below even the Seals on Bedsheets! Because it has TEEEEEXT, and because my design sensibilities interpret a classic heraldry-inspired depiction of a bear as ‘frightened’ instead of the intended ‘frightening’”
@@DNeonLampI used to read the vexillology subreddit, and now started to wonder if the unbelievable Maryland fanboying is CGP Grey's fault, or just some inexplicable curse commonly befallen on flag enthusiasts... To me it's still a hot mess, but I can still feel the fingers of group madness reaching at me from years past, trying to convince me otherwise. But that's just peer pressure, not good design.
Scott Wadsworth of Essential Craftsman cited a quote once that really sticks with me, from Harry Day the British WWI flying ace - "Rules exist for the strict adherence of fools, and for the informed guidance of wise men" Unfortunately, treating rules as unbreakable dogma really extends to broken thinking in many parts of life. Great presentation and insight as always, Linus!
I’m very here for the “Good Flag, Bad Flag” Othodoxy backlash. This is exactly how I feel about the present ways people are approaching flag design, namely CGP Grey. I think 99% Invisible ultimately communicated the ideas of this pamphlet well without adhering to these rules in absurd ways. They actually tried to discuss a way to get started with flag design and NOT a grading scale of flags. I guess you get much more engagement if you do the latter. Great response to the Premodernist by the way! I left a comment addressing how how the “simplicity” and “can a child draw it” rules are more about remix-ability, motif expression at various scales, memorability of themes, and usability in various contexts. The purpose of a good flag is civic engagement! Call it a form of branding, but people like symbols of things they value. It does mean something and that doesn’t always have to be bad.
A legitimately thought you were going to critique the designs of flags found within the Bible and was very confused because I didn't think there were any graphic designs in the Bible
There aren't flag designs in the Bible, but the Midrash designed flags for each of the 12 tribes as such: take the icon described in Jacob's blessing and put them on their gemstone's color. So, say, Reuben's map (that's the exact term used) was mandrakes on a red background...
2:05 a note on Indonesia's flag. It is The Netherlands' flag with the blue field torn off. It's strong symbolism from Indonesia tearing away from its occupied past.
the last part of the GFBF is the best part. i wholeheartedly disagree with the idea of not showing exceptions because "it's an unspoken rule". the pamphlet was clearly communicating that good flag design can break all the rules, which is very very important, since this isn't aimed at just designers, but a more general public. they've always been guidelines and im not a fan of the idea that the pamphlet somehow promotes strict adherence to any of them.
Unspoken rules is why we need guidelines. It's like common sense: It's neither common nor sensible. I like the Californian bear (and it's two-headed counterpart in Fallout), the "too many" colours of the Pride flag (the classic rainbow flag, not the extended must-include-everything redesign that misses the point of the rainbow symbolism), and several other rule-breaking flags.
@@AnotherDucksomeone made a really good video where it’s the scene with Mr. Incredible finding out about syndrome’s plan, but instead it’s how the new pride flag looks like the flag from Ohio.
Wow. My country of Dominica is goven as an example of a bad flag in GFBF for using too many colours- but the colours are wrong on the pamphlet 🇩🇲 Naturally I'm defensive, but I've always felt the ribbons and the green are doing the work- with the detail on parrot as a bit of a plus. Like Spain's flag contains green 🇪🇸 if you look closely at the crest, but its the triband that makes it iconic. (great video and measured response, I'm just heated)
Spain is the example I always think of when people cite the rule about flags being simple enough for a child to draw from memory. No child could even hope to achieve that but it is totally iconic.
@@atomicmrpellyIt's not a particularly good counterexample unfortunately. Sure, no child is going to remember the the details of the coat of arms, but "red, thick yellow, red, and a shield thingy to the left" is the main design. The details of the coat of arms don't matter for recognition, just like the specifics of the stars in the night sky in the Brazilian flag don't, or the text on the white band across it.
Spain is an example of a nation with both a state flag and a civil flag. Let's not get confused about the ideal terminology here. Both designs are iconic and it's for Spain to identify which of them is the national flag.
I noticed that more complex flags usually only work when they are still a distinctive design when all the details are stripped away For example Brazil becomes a blue circle on that yellow shape on green, or the US becomes a dotted blue rectangle on red/white stripes, number of dots and stripes aren't important As a counterexample those seal on blue state flags become white circle or blob on blue, which on it's own is probably fine but there are like 30 of them and many of the seals aren't even mostly white so the blob hasn't got one dominant color
This video seems less of a “GFBF is trash and irrelevant and offensive and harmful and ….” video and more of a “GFBF can be made better by ….”. So why are there so many “minimalism is trash and ….” comments?!? The last 3 minutes of revisions all involved making extracted and remixed elements meaningful, not maximizing unnecessary shapes and colors!
I think that was the big difference between this video and Premodernist’s bashing of GFBF. Linus did exceptionally well of being gracious and nuanced in his critique.
@@agbook2007 Linus is rather nicely taking the stance that variety in design is quite good for design in general, which is why he opened with the whole thing about orthodoxy and shoes. You see it in web design as well, where some people will quite quickly jump to calling a busier maximalist design "bad", because their school of design has a limited definition for "good." The old "rules are made to be broken" saying applies more to design than most other things.
the same type of people who a few years ago were jumping on GFBF with no real design knowledge or skill are now jumping on the hate train with... still no real design knowledge or skill. it's sad because this is one of the only GFBF critique videos I've seen that's actually any good, but a lot of the people coming here are just looking for something bashing it rather than actually caring about the craft - the awful JJ McCullough video is a great example of this.
Logical to use are heraldry rules for colors. If there are two colors next to each other, like green and blue, put white or yellow two metal colors so you can break the 3-color rule. Which is the reason the South African flag works; they put yellow and white to divide other colors. Edit: Heraldry was important way back in the battle field, so differentiate allies and enemy rules were to make them more aligible. Which sould applied to possible flag rules.
I give JJ McCullough a lot of credit for moving the conversation forward, as you describe at the end. Once a major proponent of flag reform, last year, he released a video critiquing what he perceived to be the excesses of the movement that received a good deal of traction. The new, quite underwhelming Minnesota flag and CGO Grey's terrible, state-by-state flag critique video have been really galvanizing for what I'll call the "Flag Reform Reform" crowd, and I'm glad that the conversation is moving towards and increasing recognition of the complexity of design in context, beyond these childish notions of "good" and "bad" flags.
I also give JJ credit, but I also want to point out that people (mostly on anonymous forums) criticizing this "Flag Reform" trend have existed for some years before his video. Though he was definitely one of the first to thrust this perspective into the "mainstream", at least in the youtube commentary community.
@@glennac imo he sticks way too close to the 5 principles laid out in GFBF. He fails most flags for lettering or complexity alone. Something like California’s flag, which is a well loved and instantly recognizable symbol, is failed because of the text and general complexity. All while it does its job perfectly well. Simultaneously he makes some really weird redesign suggestions, such as creating adjoining flags for the north/south state pairs which remove their individuality. Tying two places together with one design is like saying they’re basically the same place
I worry that in our effort to comfort really poorly designed flags and establish design principles to foster better ones, that we become rigid and dogmatic, leading to an assembly of flags that look formulaic and safe. Sometimes it would be ok to exceed 3 colors. South Africa’s flag is just fine. Sometimes it should be ok to include letters. The c in Colorado’s flag is not an abomination.
I was half expecting the Dutch government redesign to pop up when talking about adapting a seal into a logo. It's an interesting case study of rebranding an enormous amount of ministries and departments with separate identities into one (two if you include military) unified brand identities. It's what the Nixon era redesign could have been.
I’m a minimalist and even I think the oversimplification of flags is too much. People complained when logos remove some details, now flags are becoming a few triangles and yet it becomes “symbolic”
You're saying it's not kind to critique bad examples, but that's what you mostly do on your channel and that's what makes your channel so fun to watch!
Rules for thee and not for me! ;) But honestly, I was specifically talking about in the context of design guidelines. But there's definitely entertainment value in critiquing bad examples, at least, I hope!
I’m honestly surprised that the principle you agreed with the most was the 2-3 basic colors principle - that’s the one I DISAGREE with the most. The sheer number of incredible flags I can think of with 4 or more colors or else non-standard colors makes me think that that principle is the most obvious candidate for exclusion
@@mylittledashie7419 fair point, but there are so sheerly many exceptions to the rule that I think to even call it a good guideline to loosely follow is too much. To be fair, I think the way he formulated it at the end, with like (I watched it yesterday so I’m sorry if I get the wording wrong) “two to three basic colors for the main field of the flag,” was a good way to put that and does generally work as a guideline with a lot fewer exceptions.
The best exception to that is the classic Pride flag. It's a rainbow, and the meaning of it is that it's supposed to have _all_ of the colours. The new one misses that point by being explicit.
This 100% needs to be made into an actual pamphlet. While the "Good Flag Bad Flag" pamphlet has led to some marginally better flags it has caused more boring flags than anything else.
I think it's interesting to look at car crests when talking about seals or coats of arms. A number of car brands started with seals and had to reduce them to fit in a center cap. Porsche and Cadillac both simplified and cut elements to make cohesive and distinctive logos.
And the Cadillac crest is utterly meaningless. The Porsche crest relates back to existing crest of the city if Stuttgart. Volkswagen also pays homage to the city crest of Wolksburg. Every state, hamlet, county or city has a crest and some are seeped in history. Some are surprisingly abstract, or nothing more than patterns (see BMW).
@@boxsterman77 The BMW logo's pattern is a tribute to the flag and coat of arms of the Kingdom of Bavaria under which it was founded (the name BMW, Bayerische Motorenwerke, means Bavarian Motorworks in English), so it isn't quite meaningless.
@@boxsterman77 Apart from the BMW crest being a clear reference to the origin of its name, i.e. Bavaria, how does VW pay homage to Wolfsburg? The VW logo is (and has been since the 1930s) just a VW in a circle. The city crest of Wolfsburg is a rather complex design but has no V or W shape anywhere. Not to mention that the city of Wolfsburg is _younger_ than the car manufacturer, and was founded specifically to house VW, so if anything, it would be the other way around.
One thing that I haven’t seen addressed that both Premodernist and JJ Mcullough bring up is why flags need to be “designed” like corporate logos. Why are we accepting the framing of graphic design as the appropriate one to apply to historical symbols like flags? I get that this is a graphic design channel, but I think Premodernist makes a very good case that historical significance could be more important than graphic design. By assuming that flags should adhere to graphic design principles and function as logos for a state or city, we’re implicitly accepting a capitalist framing that a state or city is a brand that needs to be represented as such. I would have liked to seen some attempt to justify why it’s appropriate to think of flags as needing to conform to a brand rather than just be whatever the city or state or whatever feels most comfortably represents them.
A "brand" is, in its essence, not something inherently capitalist or related to corporate. It's just the corporate name for meaningful symbolism to strengthen identity and cohesion, a feature that is strongly ingrained in human culture. As such, historical references often come from exactly that - meanginful symbolism that was a "brand" in the past. France's Tricolore is the "brand" of the French Revolution, coming from a symbol used by the revolutionaries to emphasise their common cause. A red banner is a universal symbol of the workers' movement, thereby creating a sense of solidarity - and serving as a "brand" for basically everything coming from that origin, together with stars, hammer and sickle, and the colour yellow as contrast. Many "overly complex" designs are based on coats of arms - which by themselves originated as "logos" that could be very quickly identified and distinguished. All of these have historic roots, but they also work great as "logos" for their respective entities or ideas. Graphic design principles don't exist because of corporations, they exist because they are based on human nature, esp. perception and memory, itself.
There is nothing “corporate” about simplicity and clarity of design. The flag of France is beautiful and instantly recognisable, that doesn’t make it “corporate”. Flags are often simple because of the medium they exist on: fabric. Often is has straight lines and not too many elements that need to be sown together. These are principles that fit the medium the design produced in. To me, the American state flags with the seals look more “corporate”/look more like logos. Because that is what they are. The “design” is just the seal put on a background. They are designs that weren’t made for the medium (flag, fabric). They are just put on a flag as an afterthought, like the shell flags at the gas station
Flag is meant to be very recognizeable, there should ofc be meaning in the flag, but just assigning flag creates meaning for it, since it becomes your flag. Ultimately, easy recognition is most important. Because this is going to represent you atound world, and more people recognize it better. Cool design is ok, but doesn't mean anything if you can't tell what it is from distance or if it's patch on someones arm.
GFBF helped me develop a flag design project that earned me a nomination to join the AGI, but what a pleasant surprise to see you elaborate on some of the shortcomings I worked around while designing 32 different flags. Kudos!
The thing about a city flag I suppose is it won't be shrunk to a lapel pin or enlarged to the size of a football field. It'll be flown over city hall and other public buildings. It identifies 'local government in here.'
I disagree. "If you had a great city flag, you would have a banner for people to rally under to face those more important things." That comes from a Ted Talk by Roman Mars, creator and narrator of 99% invisible, and it’s always stuck with me. Sure, a basic city flag will just be place marker, but so can a seal on a side a building. Flags are unique because when they’re done well, they become a symbol of not just the government of the city, but the people of the city. Look at Chicago, or Baltimore, or St. Petersburg. Cities where the flag isn’t just a marker for municipal buildings, by the thesis by which the city controls its branding and a representation of itself to the world. Basic flags are fine. There’s nothing inherently wrong with beige, vanilla, or filter coffee. They’re all fine things in and of themselves, but they become so so much better when combined with more complex and complimentary counterparts to complete a cohesive, compelling composition. It just takes people that collectively agree to care about it enough.
When thinking of national flags, I think the big exception is where there's a strong calligraphic tradition (this is not to contradict, but to add/clarify the words point). "You know it when you see it" tends to be true. The other thing is if people use it, it tends to be serving its function. I think the Maryland flag is uniquely hideous, but I also love it because everyone and their dog has some article of clothing or sticker featuring it.
It’s a matter of symbolism vs. effectiveness. Good flag, bad flag is confusing because it’s meant to explain what makes a flag effective, but then also dabbles in symbolism. What you should do is read GFBF to understand effectiveness, and then read Brian Cham’s dealbreakers of flag design to understand symbolism. Ignore effectiveness, and it won’t fulfill the purpose a flag. Ignore symbolism, and the flag won’t be flown.
Thanks. This encapsulates my thoughts on how Good Flag, Bad Flag and Six Deal-Breakers ought to complement each other. I never saw these as conflicting and I don't like people hijacking my presentation/article as if it were some kind of rebuttal to Good Flag, Bad Flag.
That pamphlet is basically 2 points disguised as 5. 1. Keep it simple. 2. If you use a symbol only use 1 because being simple is better. 3. Use no more than 3 basic colours because simple is better. 4. Never use lettering or seals because that would not be simple and rule 1 says keep it simple. 5. Be distinctive but not TOO simple. What is a group supposed to do with this information? It's like someone heard about minimalism once at a conference and then decided to teach design to people while ignoring the problem to solve which is that there are thousands of countries, states, provinces, cities, schools, organizations and teams and if all of them change their flags to a 2 or 3 primary colour horizontal striped design with an icon in the middle we are going to have a lot of identical flags out there.
The funny thing about this is that we've already had historical examples of this. For instance, the flag of England (St. George's Cross) was used earlier (and still is used) as the flag of Genoa. Imagine if the Republic of Genoa was still an independent nation!
I get your point. My work around here is that Ted has a good list but for me it's in the wrong order. "Simple" should be part of that final pull together process. Symbology should always be the prime decision in all of this. It should aim to be unique and fully representative of well established official symbology. The visual message of the details should be in harmony with the colors of the field. There really should not be more than four colors in total. History counts, and retro linkage is better than new whatever. When you think you have it about right, think deeper and tighten the focus if it helps. That should be the limit of trying to keep it simple.
I really enjoy this! The video makes a great compliment to to the Premodernist one, taking more of a graphic design approach rather than one based on history or material culture.
Thank you thank you THANK YOU for putting the most coherent voice yet to all my thoughts on GFBF. Currently working on something in Pennsylvania and this video is now on my list of things decision-makers *need* to see.
A few years ago I started a project to redesign the flags of US/Canada states/provinces/territories. Mostly because I hate my own state's (Michigan). I don't think I'd heard of "Good Flag, Bad Flag" until now, but apparently I adopted some of its principles as rules - e.g. "no words", "no years", "no seals" - mostly because "rules" gave me the freedom to slash-and-burn if I wanted. Especially for the ones with racist history. However, I did make exceptions. One of my favorite things to do with seals was - as you suggest - to pull elements out of them... I found some neat things in some of the seals that yielded some designs I like a lot. There were also a few that I couldn't improve on, and I left those as-is. [link in reply]
I'd love your guess as to why the final version of the new Minnesota flag is just two-color. The submitted design it's mostly based on included a tricolor area I very much prefer to the flat blue. It went from overdense to jarringly sparse, I think, though I prefer the new one.
No need to guess, the committee discussions that led to that change are on the public record. The short answer is that after reviewing several potential variations, the selection committee was swayed by a demonstration of the winning one where it was pointed out that, when hung in it's vertical orientation, it resembles a night sky with the North star (MN's state motto is "l'Etoile du Nord" i.e. "the Star of the North") over the Mississippi river (which has it's source in the state). Personally, while I did initially prefer the tricolor, I have already seen variants of the flag that have put other logos (such as sports teams) in the light blue field, and it works really well. I like that our new flag has the flexibility to be adapted without losing any of it's defining characteristics.
Now I wanna see a long video where you share thoughts on the final designs of recent redesigns. I’m biased because I live in an area that’s had a few on the city and state levels in the past 20 years or so. Haha
You've inadvertently explained why I dislike so many of the rash of new county flags we've had in the UK over the last few years: they look like logos scaled up. I don't think that's good design for a flag per se - flags need to be recognisable when not flat, logos don't. But I also think it's inappropriate for political entities older than most countries (older than UK or its nations in some cases) to have flags that look like they were designed on a computer for a £100 tax dodge company yesterday.
Couldn't disagree with you more. I simply think flags are for the people they represent. If the people like the flag and use/display it, then that's a win, and the only win worth counting. OR we can apply your elitist standards and have a flag that is only used in government buildings because the average person doesn't care about it or like its design.
@@friendlybane You should be an athlete with that jumping ability. People care about pretty things. The Venician flag is the most popular flag in the city, and it isn't exactly a tricolour. The flag of Maryland is more popular than the US flag in the state. It's the most complicated flag in the US. The idea that working class people don't care for complex designs, is it's self elitist. People care about good designs. And I agree with OP. A county tracing it's heritage to the Doomsday Book shouldn't have a flag that makes it look like a Microsoft subsidiary. It should be proud of its history, and look good.
@@billygoatgruff3536 Neither the OG comment or my comment talked about "complex flags" anywhere, or even implied it. You've just manufactured an argument in your own head. The irony of talking about "jumping" when you did exactly that without reading the 2 comments you are responding to. I live in Colorado and our flag looks like a "logo" or whatever. And yet, I see the flag everywhere every single day. Hats, shirts, bumper stickers, storefronts, etc. People love it, regardless of whether @henryblunt8503 thinks it was "designed on a computer for a £100 tax dodge company yesterday."
@@billygoatgruff3536 who said anything about "working class people"? Thats your own political point you're choosing to insert. If people thought a design was good, then they wouldn't be supporting a redesign to begin with, simple as. If you want to have opinions on exactly what some other community should be proud of, congrats, but I'm not sure what gave you the impression that anybody needed you to show it ofd.
My biggest irk with GFBF is that it is used to justify changing a flag that does not fit the "principles." I believe design is NOT what determines whether a flag good. A flag is *good* if the people whom the flag represents like and enjoy the flag. You could have an "atrociously designed" flag, like Pocatello Idaho, but if the people of Pocatello _like_ the flag than it is a _good_ flag. I worry that there is an insidious prescriptivism that instigates these flag changes.
I think 'easy for a child to draw a recognizable form from memory' is a more applicable guideline for country flags than for city flags... ...And I'd still prefer national flags to look more like the Welsh flag with a cool freaking dragon on it which I couldn't draw from memory now I'm in my late 30s let alone 30 years ago than the seemingly infinite tricolours continental Europe has to offer. But maybe the Welsh flag is an exception.
The Welsh flag is probably the prime example of "so easy to draw a child could do it". Take any field of green/white and draw a vaguely lizard-like red squiggle on top - congrats, you've drawn a serviceable Welsh flag. You could even just forgo the representation entirely and just write "DRAGON" in red crayon and I'm pretty sure most people would immediately understand what they're looking at.
The original title is "GOOD" FLAG, "BAD" FLAG, but those quotation marks are unually ommitted by those who threat thoses rules (which aim to avoid pitfalls in flag design) as invariable laws to design flags which have to be good by definition.
The problem with seals on state flags is that they’re not distinguishable at any sort of distance. I can’t tell what state it is from the art, I have to look at tiny words, and all the seals on blue are identical in Actual Flag Use Scenarios
I feel like “Good Flag, Bad Flag” has lead to a lot of bland/generic designs as well. Too reliant on geometric shapes for their designs as virtually anything else is frowned upon. Think the flag redesigns of Mississippi & Utah being better received than Minnesota’s. Or how the “ Appalachian” flag has been far less visible compared to the Cascadia flag despite similar origins.
Isn't the reason for Minnesota's flag not being all that well recieved that they massively changed it right at the end? And really that's just a problem with design by commitee, which made plenty of bad flags before GFBF came around.
I thought this video was gonna be about an edition of the Bible with a flag themed cover design and idk if I should be relieved or disappointed that it isn't 😅
I find it interesting that you start out with a discussion of how Good-Flag-Bad-Flag absolutism is a problem that arises commonly in the real world, and then later dismiss the "examples of exceptions" section as unnecessary. It seems to me that, if anything, it should have been more prominent! I think this points to one of the fascinating things about flag design, which is that often flags are not designed by professional designers, and the debates that shape their designs certainly involve many people who are not professional designers. And often they involve people who arguably have neither good taste nor good design sense, at least in the views of other people involved in the debate. I would guess that one of the reasons for GFBF's popularity and persistence is that, while Ted Kaye did not have formal design background, he had a very keen sense of how flag-design debates tend to go, and a very keen ability to write something useful for a person in the midst of one.
Often the simplicity mandate is justified by some naval flag origin story set on the high seas, and this is somewhat accurate for many famous National European flags. The problem is that this isn't the only origin for flags in Europe, many originate in rather detailed banners which would have never been flown at sea. This is especially common for the flag of a region or city within a larger nation. Many of these very detailed heraldry derived flags are rather popular, the Welsh love theirs.
@@evanpereira3555 the flag just screams "diddly diddly diddly doo, we sailed the seven seas, also we have way too much lore so don't ask" like straight up pulling the Basque and Brittany into it like a pair of obscure historical flashbangs just to bamboozle everyone who sees it
People treating good advice as unbreakable dogma is a standard problem in most fields. The next step after that is that an antagonistic group sprouts up complaining that the good advice (that was never intended to be universal) isn't universal. Then it becomes the new dogma for a while that the original advice is bad actually because it isn't universally applicable. Then the advice gets slowly forgotten about because people stop giving the advice. Then somebody reinvents it. Return to beginning.
As others have asked, I'm curious if you have any thoughts on the new Minnesota flag specifically. I'm especially interested in what you think of their selection process; I'm fairly convinced that a large part of the backlash to the final design was due to how publicly it all played out. On one hand, I appreciate the transparency and amount of public engagement, but on the other I think it led to a lot of people who were not familiar with an iterative design process getting attached to proposed flags and inevitably feeling let down when their favorite didn't win or, even in the case of the "winning" design, when it underwent significant revisions before being finalized. If the final flag had been presented with no prior discourse, I think it would have been received much more positively. For the record, as a Minnesotan, I'm actually really happy with what we landed on.
I'm so glad people are waking up to this insanity. no, we don't need to make every flag stupid flat modern looking corporate logo. when people like CGP show their ideas for alternatives I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. tradition>modern design trends.
Maryland is my favourite US state flag and it completely goes against "good flag bad flag". If they ever change it the US will be considered a failed state in my mind. It is not an exception to the rule. But why the "good flag bad flag" rules are not rules at all! Just a subjective opinion presented as a guide. Nepal's flag also breaks every convention and it is one of the most iconic flags for a reason.
My observation is that people watch a single YT video and then think they're expert flag critics. This sudden movement to redo many state/city flags into overly simplified, meaningless banners is not something I support. There were many better flags proposed for Minnesota, Mississippi and Utah.
What has actually happened is that GFBF gave a lot of people the tools they needed to express why they didn't like a lot of flags. Have you ever seen a movie you didn't like, but struggled to explain why you didn't like it because you're not overly familiar with the techniques used in film making, and then seen someone's review of the movie that made you go "Oh right! *That* was what bothered me about it"? It's the same thing. People don't think they're expert flag critics, they just feel more able to express the opinions they already had about flags.
You know CGP Grey has been considering outlining a response to Premodernist ever since that video went up. He is surely within a few months of weighing pros and cons and deciding to plan the video. In three years he's gonna have a banger of a video responding to these attacks.
@@pascalfibonacci I'd just like to quote a line or two very start of that video *ahem* "[Designing a good flag is] a tough task, though not too tough with the *GUIDELINES* I gave you. One) Keep it simple, something a child could draw, *EVEN IF THEY NEED TO SIMPLIFY IT AGAIN* [...] 3) 3 colours or fewer, *UNLESS YOU REALLY KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING* [...] 5) Words on a flag: the *IDEAL* number is zero" Wow, yeah, really "strict adherence" to the rules. Nevermind that he positively rates several flags that break the rules later on. Did you guys even watch the video, or have you just been told that some youtube guy is the cause of all your vexillological woes?
@mylittledashie7419 Yeah I did watch it and it was the final bad faith take that caused me to unsubscribe and stop watching his videos (see also his complete dismissal of all oral history, which btw is pretty racist). Perhaps strict isn't the best word but arbitrary especially his treatment of the California, Colorado, and Ohio flags. I feel bad for any kids who had him as a teacher in real life because he seems miserable and opposed to joy and creativity.
@@pascalfibonacci Arbitrary is the complete opposite of strict. And that's what we all do, we're all arbitrarily deciding which flags we like and which one's we don't because it's an entirely subjective thing. I don't know how you can expect it to be anything other than subjective. So where was the bad faith? He very clearly set them up as guidelines that you don't have to follow, but are decent rules of thumb, and he employs them as guidelines that are rules of thumb for the kind of flags he likes, but doesn't follow strictly if he doesn't want to. How is that bad faith? Bad faith is actually randomly bringing up an unrelated (and unsourced) claim about how he feels about oral history when it has nothing to do with the conversation, just to call him racist. And just so we're clear, I'm not a "racism has no meaning" type, I'm deep into breadtube, I'm about as lefty as they come and it would affect my opinion of him if he really does have racist views, but regardless it's still bad faith to bring them up out of no where to try and prove you're right about an unrelated issue.
@mylittledashie7419 He is arbitrarily strict. I never said he argued in bad faith. It is that his opinions on the flags are presented in a way that suggests they are more objective than they are and with a complete disregard for more nuanced design principles. Further I bring up his dismissal of oral history (which if you watched his videos, as you claim I don't, you would know is in the one about who owns liberty Island and the story of the boat race around it) to make a point that he has an overly literal and uncreative approach to the world that results in bad takes. See also his dislike of jazz music because it is not a useful tool to help him focus (I don't remember which video this is from, and I don't care enough to go check). Given his, shall we say, overly scientific approach to the world, I am skeptical that he would fully digest the criticisms in a video such as this and provide an adequate response. Also, he seems to have an arrogance about assuming he is right a lot of the time, so that makes a good response even less likely. Btw I don't think he intends to be racist but there certainly is racist undertones in dismissing all oral history as "hearsay." Unsourced. How about you watch some more of his videos and get an idea of the man as a whole because I've watched hime for years, and at some point, it became too annoying to watch anymore.
Just a small observation, no shade thrown on any person, but I noticed that for a long time these design rules were cherished by many folks until just recently when a few folks made videos against them. Now being against these rules is fashionable. I wonder what exactly happened?
My guess would be that a number of state flag redesigns (namely Utah and especially now Minnesota) have ignited conversation around the simplistic style championed by GFBF. I think Minnesota's redesign has been especially controversial and has changed a lot of people's opinion on the GFBF design philosophy
I've noticed this stuff too, my interpretation is that it's been long enough since Good Flag, Bad Flag seeped into the public consciousness that now people are re-evaluating its message, which also works because (at least from my non-graphic designer layman view) design has swung away from the minimalism that was big in the 2010s, and the stripped down design ethos Good Flag Bad Flag argued for.
It's called thermostatic public opinion. 10 years ago almost nobody even really thought about flag design. Then some high profile influencers (like CGP Grey) drew attention to these guidelines and it resonated with a lot of people. It felt like a sort of hidden knowledge that explained something they may have felt but never really thought much about or articulated, and it caught on. As a result it started getting it's own cult following, who had some political successes, and sometimes might have been a bit too zealous about it, which lead to some people thinking it went too far and offering some pushback on it. Basically anything that becomes popular has a backlash. If the backlash becomes too popular then it too gets a backlash. And so on for as long as interest remains in talking about it.
What happened is that doofuses like CGP Gray started taking it upon themselves to critique flags as a way of signalling their superiority in a very niche subject that most people are ambivalent about without bothering to understand how or why many “bad” flags came to look the way they do. It’s an obnoxious kind of cultural revisionism that assumes that there’s something to “fix” and that the “solution” is to be found in the rigid orthodoxy of a pamphlet that you have never heard of.
A couple of things that I have come to learn (while not in a desgin field, I feel applicable). 1. There is a reason why a design was that way. Understanding the jounary it took to get to where it was is important. While as an outside observer it might seem odd or wrong for certain choices, without knowing why (and not presuming but finding out) a certain choice was made, you can end up wasting time taking the same jounary only to produce something similar. 2. Don't ignore the user. Getting feedback and understanding it at all stages is very imporant. Reality (in this case representing people) can easly become distorted if you don't check often. This could be the importance of certain symbols, compasions etc. While we are all aware that uses might not know what they want, they do know if they like something or not. Understanding and not warping feedback is a big skill but important.
GFBF seems to be misunderstood as some sort of strict ruleset by some flag reformists instead of some guidelines written by a non-expert for non-experts. It discusses some common properties of good flags and bad flags, then suggests for others to not stray too far from properties found in good flags and to not get to close to those found in bad flags, not because failing to do so makes the flag bad, but rather because it makes it easier to make good flags and avoid making bad flags. Of course, what flags are good and what flags are bad are the opinions of the writer and not some absolutes.
The core issue is what flags are used for. For example, I live in Colorado and see the State flag daily. I've also lived in States with "Coat of Arms" Flags and never once saw them. Is the Colorado flag better? YES, absolutely. Why, because regular everyday Coloradans use it often because of it's "simple" but recognizable design. Flags are for people. And it's not a debate what type of flags people like.
My thoughts on this are very similar. If a flag doesn't follow the traditional rules of design, but people love it and use it anyways, it's a good flag, end of story.
One thing I noticed about many bad flag designs is that the problem isn't really with these guideline rules, but with more universal design principles like use of space and detail density. Especially those 'seal flags' often put a highly detailed seal in front of a solid colour background (and often with poor colour coordination on top of that). The result seems too busy in a small center while having a jarringly empty background. Brazil and Portugal are nice examples to the opposite. They contain large shapes to break up the background and have a rising detail-gradient towards the center, rather than an abrupt 100% detail/0% detail-boundary. While classic three-stripes designs, like those of most European countries, have the simplest solution by only having one equally spaced (more or less at least) level of detail. The flag of Serbia then adds one level of detail on top in form of its seal, which is nicely spaced and scaled.
The guide is a product of its time to reinforce design trends of contemporaries who have given it thought. Who is to say in 100 years we won't return to incredibly intricate designs of such as heraldic symbols with the complexity of a QR code.
*Corrections* to be pinned here!
I'll start by adding some nuanced points that couldn't quite fit the script:
- My perspective comes as a graphic designer and branding specialist with almost two decades of experience. I've edited and written dozens of design guidelines and likely read hundreds, ranging from broad "visual identity guidelines" to specific ones for everything from vehicle branding, advertising campaigns, motion graphics, signage, wayfinding, app icons, etc. I bring that lens to my critique of GFBF, treating it as if I were approaching it like a design guideline. Though it's not a perfect genre match, I hope this perspective is enlightening, as it's not one I've seen shared on this topic before.
- While it's possible some designers did contribute to GFBF uncredited, the broader point is that NAVA is not primarily a design organisation. By their own description, they're "Flag Enthusiasts and Scholars," and Ted Kaye himself has no formal design background. Flag design projects aren't common enough to sustain a dedicated professional niche, let alone a specialist design agency, so it's remarkable how effectively it communicates its ideas about design.
- The Brazilian flag has lettering, and I don't think it should be removed. It works for various reasons: a) it's not a nametag, and b) it's not Helvetica. But mostly, it's one of those exceptions. I wouldn't highlight it in a design guideline.
- The redesign of the Portuguese government brand identity was rejected not just for aesthetic reasons; there were political reasons too, beyond the scope of this video.
- I've used the American spelling "color" because that's how it appears in the original. Try to remain unperturbed.
- 9:05 "Destinctive" a typo - mea culpa.
By the way, the Brazilian flag does not specify the font the text should be written, only the height of the letters and the color: green.
In my understanding, no designers were involved in the creation of GFBF. The last page of the pamphlet lists people whose wisdom Ted Kaye distilled (as he puts it). The names he lists are mostly fellow flag collectors who were on an e-mail list together in the late 1990s and who would meet up periodically.
I'd think Saudi Arabia (or the Taliban, ISIL, or Hamas) is the more obvious "has text on it" example than Brazil.
But they're entirely text and it's culturally meaningful calligraphy.
The stylization on Iraq's is interesting because it's so different.
Adding letterings to flags, also complicates the manufacturing process, the flag of Saudi Arabia specifically states to manufacture the flags congruently in official usages, in vexillology terms, identical inverse and obverse, to make sure the script is readable on both sides. Such process makes the flag heavy to be flown and be picked up by the wind, as it is essentially two flag with identical, un-flipped charges (design) sewn together.
Looking at historical Chinese-Korean war banners, this was also the case. Japanese less, due to reliance on mostly-symmetrical Mon seals, even when Kanji is present within the Mon design. Though it's only done to ensure readability, as despite when flipped, non-Latin-based calligraphy, still maintains its aesthetic value. Latin-based characters suffer due to the writing system is entirely depended on asymmetry, while Kanji is contained within a block. Example, "q, p, b, and d' would look the identical and be mistaken from a distance when flipped.
9:05 Did you use the American spelling "destinctive" as well?
Rule 1 - Comic sans on all flags
Rule 2 - Feature photorealistic prints of local dignitaries
Rule 3 - Rectangles are boring, enhance your flag by giving it a unique shape
Comic sans is genuinely good, though.
I mean, Napal has a non-standard flag shape and it looks pretty awesome. 🇳🇵
The flag of Paxi, Greece actually does use Comic Sans, so there's at least one example of it being used on a flag.
@@Hijiri_MIRACHIONWHY DOES IT LOOK SO FITTING????? 😭😭
@@oliviastratton2169 Natalie?
You flirt with making a competing flag design pamphlet. It would be quite interesting if you were to publish that; it could be a useful source of moderation with the flag redesign people.
I'm such a tease. But honestly - I don't have the bandwidth to dive deeper on this, but I did feel strongly enough to make this video. Hope it inspires others though!
It's basically finished, just need some examples and what not. Someone should at least have the decency to steal it
It should be made, Linus. Great video! 👍
@@LinusBomanmaybe if not a video, a patreon post would do
Haha, „flirt”! I see what you did there! 🤓
My children, gather round and I shall tell you about the year the Flag Wars began, and the TEDx talk heard round the world that started it all.
The flag wars have been going on at least since r/vexillogy came about, I am afraid.
Did the two sides of the war use flags to distinguish themselves from eachother?
@@Salsmachev Yes, but one of them doesn’t count because it has writing on it
Sir, a second anti "good flag bad flag" video has hit the discourse
This is getting out of hand; now, there are two of them!
MORE!
What‘s the first?
Probably one of JJMcCullough videos
Good "Good Flag, Bad Flag" critique, Bad "Good Flag, Bad Flag" critique
What's missing in the whole flag discourse in our society is a discussion of what state and city flags are even for. The arguments I hear about certain things like lettering or too much detail making a flag less "effective" don't resonate with me because as far as I can tell, flags serve no practical purpose; they're just cultural symbols to represent identity. Whether a certain detail is discernible from a distance is therefore immaterial. And it doesn't matter if the design or symbolism is immediately readable or understandable to a cultural outsider, because it's not about them, it's about the in-group's collective self-expression.
But I suspect other people would disagree with me about what a flag's purpose is. This is what we as a society need to hash out when talking about flags. Why do we have a state or city flag? What problems does the existence of the flag solve? I don't mean answering "How is this new design a solution," but rather, "How is the flag itself a solution," i.e. any flag as opposed to no flag. We have to answer those questions before we can decide how good a given design is, or whether certain elements (e.g. lettering) are appropriate to include. Until then we'll all just be talking past each other.
Thank you for the mention! And thank you for making this video. I'm glad a greater variety of views on flag design is being expressed after the GFBF monoculture of the past decade.
Your video was very impassioned and raised many points I hadn't considered before, so thank you for making it too. I think what you mention about a flag's purpose is a key challenge with flag design. There's no actual international authority on flags, only "enthusiast" groups. As cultural symbols, they really are a wide scope of different case-by-case scenarios - hence the footwear analogy. How do you weigh the needs and goals of different stakeholders in a project like a state flag redesign? It's not a simple question. Anyway, the rabbit hole goes deep. This was originally intended to only be a short video addressing your question on simplicity as a design virtue, but your video really stuck with me and it got me thinking deeper about some of the ways that GFBF is misapplied or ill equipped to address these projects. So thanks for inspiring this video, which I hope in turn can spark more conversation on the topic!
Historically the idea was to be recognised on ships from a distance and I guess the modern version would be getting recognised in a display at a parliament? Which isn't quite as crucial lol
Enjoy and didn't enjoy your video and your take. I feel like history is always changing, and it is a representation of the people now and their ideals. We cannot hold history as the proper path to do things for the people in the past who didn't always think that way! Either they held on to the past and preserved tradition or progressively upturned the old helm. We are revitalizing these symbols for modern people. In 100 years, people will continue to use them as representations of themselves, or they will bulldoze our grand efforts into something new anyway. The "seals on the bedsheet" were most often hurriedly made representations in the past, borrowing from another tradition of seals and heraldry to quickly make a flag that would suffice. Should maintain their poor decisions or separate the seals from the flag; administering importance to each in their own respective zone?
I'm really curious about your take on Chinese Provinces and their lack of flags. I feel like the American zealot would be vexilogically angry that they aren't represented properly! Through Chinese culture, flags weren't a thing in the western sense. Today, they still aren't much of a thing except within the military and as a national identity. I don't know where I'm going with this, I'm just curious on your take on the subject and how it would it the debate.
@@KidGibson Do you actually know the history of specific seal-based state flags, or are you just guessing?
I'd definitely disagree. There are a lot of symbols that can convey identity - seals, coats of arms, mottos, even songs. What makes flags unique among them is that flags can strongly communicate identity at a glance. The Prägnanz and distinctiveness that make a good flag distinguishable as a piece of cloth on a flagpole, even from a distance and under low-visibility conditions, also make it a great visual identification tool in a lot of other circumstances where you have to let people who you are as a group.
Yes, not every element needs to be distinctive and prägnant - the motto and the stars on the Brazilian flag are a good example. But even there, the green background, golden diamond and blue circle already do the heavy lifting of visual communication. You can certainly adopt a flag that lacks distinctive and easily discernible as a symbol, but then it fails as a communication tool.
I think the "a child could be able to draw it from memory" way of expressing principle 1 is more useful than principle 1 by itself, if you interpret it in a nuanced way. Like, the kid doesn't have to be able to draw it perfectly, just well enough that you can tell what flag it's supposed to be. Which also means the flag has to be distinctive and unconfusing enough to be remembered in the first place; think of how many European flags are easy to get mixed up with each other because they're just palette swaps of the same ultra-basic design.
The thing about European flags is that they are so basic a child could draw them but also clearly distinct them from one another. The colours have become the distinctive 'details' which are easy to tell apart. (Exceptions like Slovakia/Slovenia or Romania/Moldova/Andorra exist, but are besides the point)
Children can draw most EU flags very easily. It's just 3 colors next to each other.
They struggle way harder when they try to draw the UK flag for example.
I feel like children would definitely have struggles drawing the German flag vs the Belgian flag, or Netherlands vs France vs Russia @@tim..indeed
@@tim..indeed I never had a problem drawing the Union Jack as a child. But if you told me to draw the flags of Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and Norway I couldn't tell you which flag has which colors
A flag needs to be distinct. No flag is confused for the American or Canadian flags. And I don't think anyone is confusing the Union Jack for the North Macedonia flag
@@newsaxonyproductions7871when Poland is in distress it become Monaco lol
So refreshing to hear the perspective of someone who actually knows about design. So many of the flagsperts have no real design knowledge or training so their theories are just based on half-informed feelings based on a very limited set of case studies.
The idea that flag design should be based on case studies rather than the feelings the flag evokes is the exact mindset that leads these people to this foolishness. Trying to distil art into a set of best practices and committee decisions is how you create minimalist corporate logos and NAVA flags.
based jj
@@_xeere The point is not that these rules need to be followed, it's that Linus is offering an ACTUAL graphic designer's perspective on what "best practices" should be like.
@@JJMcCullough How many flags has he designed? While the technical knowledge of design is a good thing in this discussion, simply doing something similar is not a qualification. The original author of the rules probably knew a lot more about flags than Linus, and yet what he produced was of little, or perhaps negative, value.
Well I guess trying to ping JJ on this video is a moot point! Lol. I’m glad you saw this, and possibly more of Linus’ great work.
I've always found it interesting how people are so quick to bash the "minimalist logo" trend, but everyone seems to like e.g. the Japanese prefecture flags.
Instead of "seals on a bedsheet", we now have "logos on a rectangle".
the minimalist seals in japan has traditions that date back to the old samurai clan symbols. It's based on traditions, not a trend.
I can't quite tell most of them apart but I feel like it's something I could easily memorise just cos the colours are so distinctive, I remember Hiroshima cos it's purple with three arrows and their soccer team is SanFrecce Hiroshima for example
@@justinw1554 exactly. And the prefecture flags additionally make sense in a simple form because they fit together as a set.
If a single US state redesigns its flag, then it has to stand on its own. But if the US decided to redesign every state flag at once, then there would be a good case to treat them as a set with a coherent overarching style. Which in turn lends itself to using a fairly simple design pattern.
If the logo is good enough just putting it on a rectangle looks great. The main problem with the "seals on a bedsheet" flags is the seals.
@@justinw1554 Actually, a lot of modern prefectural seals aren't like the clan Mon, but are really stylized versions of Kanji or just regular logo designs. There's nothing particularly Mon-derived in the flag of Aomori, for instance, but it is indeed, just reflective of Modern era design trends as used by designers within Japan's cultural sphere.
Someone call CGP Grey, his sacred text is being called into question
To be fair, he also loves the Maryland flag so he knows that rules are made to be broken.
If it gets him back on RUclips, I’m for it.
@@DNeonLampBut he still HATES the California flag, despite it even GFBF giving it as an example of a good design despite breaking a lot of rules. Which I’m like, sure, if you want to put it in C-tier with the other “not amazing but at least interesting and distinctive” flags I understand, but he’s like “NO! F Tier! Below even the Seals on Bedsheets! Because it has TEEEEEXT, and because my design sensibilities interpret a classic heraldry-inspired depiction of a bear as ‘frightened’ instead of the intended ‘frightening’”
@@DNeonLampI used to read the vexillology subreddit, and now started to wonder if the unbelievable Maryland fanboying is CGP Grey's fault, or just some inexplicable curse commonly befallen on flag enthusiasts... To me it's still a hot mess, but I can still feel the fingers of group madness reaching at me from years past, trying to convince me otherwise. But that's just peer pressure, not good design.
I'm sure he's furiously preparing a response. He might have something in even 2 or 3 years!
Scott Wadsworth of Essential Craftsman cited a quote once that really sticks with me, from Harry Day the British WWI flying ace - "Rules exist for the strict adherence of fools, and for the informed guidance of wise men"
Unfortunately, treating rules as unbreakable dogma really extends to broken thinking in many parts of life. Great presentation and insight as always, Linus!
I’m very here for the “Good Flag, Bad Flag” Othodoxy backlash.
This is exactly how I feel about the present ways people are approaching flag design, namely CGP Grey.
I think 99% Invisible ultimately communicated the ideas of this pamphlet well without adhering to these rules in absurd ways. They actually tried to discuss a way to get started with flag design and NOT a grading scale of flags. I guess you get much more engagement if you do the latter.
Great response to the Premodernist by the way! I left a comment addressing how how the “simplicity” and “can a child draw it” rules are more about remix-ability, motif expression at various scales, memorability of themes, and usability in various contexts. The purpose of a good flag is civic engagement! Call it a form of branding, but people like symbols of things they value. It does mean something and that doesn’t always have to be bad.
Alternate title: Good "Good Flag Bad Flag" Bad "Good Flag Bad Flag"
Took me a good minute to understand why you chose the ‘green flag’ ‘red flag’ rating system. I am not a smart man. PS Nepal ftw
A legitimately thought you were going to critique the designs of flags found within the Bible and was very confused because I didn't think there were any graphic designs in the Bible
There aren't flag designs in the Bible, but the Midrash designed flags for each of the 12 tribes as such: take the icon described in Jacob's blessing and put them on their gemstone's color. So, say, Reuben's map (that's the exact term used) was mandrakes on a red background...
From the title and especially thumbnail, I got the impression that some American nutjobs made a bible version with US flags or something.
@@adrianblake8876 Interesting. I would like to hear more.
@@MrRottenAli Numbers Rabbah 2:7
2:05 a note on Indonesia's flag. It is The Netherlands' flag with the blue field torn off. It's strong symbolism from Indonesia tearing away from its occupied past.
That's so metal wth
the last part of the GFBF is the best part. i wholeheartedly disagree with the idea of not showing exceptions because "it's an unspoken rule". the pamphlet was clearly communicating that good flag design can break all the rules, which is very very important, since this isn't aimed at just designers, but a more general public. they've always been guidelines and im not a fan of the idea that the pamphlet somehow promotes strict adherence to any of them.
Unspoken rules is why we need guidelines. It's like common sense: It's neither common nor sensible.
I like the Californian bear (and it's two-headed counterpart in Fallout), the "too many" colours of the Pride flag (the classic rainbow flag, not the extended must-include-everything redesign that misses the point of the rainbow symbolism), and several other rule-breaking flags.
@@AnotherDucksomeone made a really good video where it’s the scene with Mr. Incredible finding out about syndrome’s plan, but instead it’s how the new pride flag looks like the flag from Ohio.
I have to say this is the most nuanced take I have seen on flag redesign, and I'm not at all surprised given your background.
Wow. My country of Dominica is goven as an example of a bad flag in GFBF for using too many colours- but the colours are wrong on the pamphlet 🇩🇲
Naturally I'm defensive, but I've always felt the ribbons and the green are doing the work- with the detail on parrot as a bit of a plus.
Like Spain's flag contains green 🇪🇸 if you look closely at the crest, but its the triband that makes it iconic.
(great video and measured response, I'm just heated)
Purple is pretty distinctive!
Spain is the example I always think of when people cite the rule about flags being simple enough for a child to draw from memory. No child could even hope to achieve that but it is totally iconic.
@@atomicmrpellyIt's not a particularly good counterexample unfortunately. Sure, no child is going to remember the the details of the coat of arms, but "red, thick yellow, red, and a shield thingy to the left" is the main design. The details of the coat of arms don't matter for recognition, just like the specifics of the stars in the night sky in the Brazilian flag don't, or the text on the white band across it.
Spain is an example of a nation with both a state flag and a civil flag. Let's not get confused about the ideal terminology here. Both designs are iconic and it's for Spain to identify which of them is the national flag.
I can say that I could easily pick out the flag of Dominica if you show me a bunch of flags
I noticed that more complex flags usually only work when they are still a distinctive design when all the details are stripped away
For example Brazil becomes a blue circle on that yellow shape on green, or the US becomes a dotted blue rectangle on red/white stripes, number of dots and stripes aren't important
As a counterexample those seal on blue state flags become white circle or blob on blue, which on it's own is probably fine but there are like 30 of them and many of the seals aren't even mostly white so the blob hasn't got one dominant color
This video seems less of a “GFBF is trash and irrelevant and offensive and harmful and ….” video and more of a “GFBF can be made better by ….”.
So why are there so many “minimalism is trash and ….” comments?!? The last 3 minutes of revisions all involved making extracted and remixed elements meaningful, not maximizing unnecessary shapes and colors!
I think that was the big difference between this video and Premodernist’s bashing of GFBF.
Linus did exceptionally well of being gracious and nuanced in his critique.
@@agbook2007 Linus is rather nicely taking the stance that variety in design is quite good for design in general, which is why he opened with the whole thing about orthodoxy and shoes. You see it in web design as well, where some people will quite quickly jump to calling a busier maximalist design "bad", because their school of design has a limited definition for "good." The old "rules are made to be broken" saying applies more to design than most other things.
the same type of people who a few years ago were jumping on GFBF with no real design knowledge or skill are now jumping on the hate train with... still no real design knowledge or skill. it's sad because this is one of the only GFBF critique videos I've seen that's actually any good, but a lot of the people coming here are just looking for something bashing it rather than actually caring about the craft - the awful JJ McCullough video is a great example of this.
you overestimate the average YT audience attention span
Logical to use are heraldry rules for colors. If there are two colors next to each other, like green and blue, put white or yellow two metal colors so you can break the 3-color rule. Which is the reason the South African flag works; they put yellow and white to divide other colors.
Edit: Heraldry was important way back in the battle field, so differentiate allies and enemy rules were to make them more aligible. Which sould applied to possible flag rules.
I give JJ McCullough a lot of credit for moving the conversation forward, as you describe at the end. Once a major proponent of flag reform, last year, he released a video critiquing what he perceived to be the excesses of the movement that received a good deal of traction. The new, quite underwhelming Minnesota flag and CGO Grey's terrible, state-by-state flag critique video have been really galvanizing for what I'll call the "Flag Reform Reform" crowd, and I'm glad that the conversation is moving towards and increasing recognition of the complexity of design in context, beyond these childish notions of "good" and "bad" flags.
I also give JJ credit, but I also want to point out that people (mostly on anonymous forums) criticizing this "Flag Reform" trend have existed for some years before his video. Though he was definitely one of the first to thrust this perspective into the "mainstream", at least in the youtube commentary community.
Why do you consider Grey’s critique “terrible”? 🤔
@@glennac imo he sticks way too close to the 5 principles laid out in GFBF. He fails most flags for lettering or complexity alone. Something like California’s flag, which is a well loved and instantly recognizable symbol, is failed because of the text and general complexity. All while it does its job perfectly well. Simultaneously he makes some really weird redesign suggestions, such as creating adjoining flags for the north/south state pairs which remove their individuality. Tying two places together with one design is like saying they’re basically the same place
… I actually like that Minnesota flag
@@th.nd.r It's certainly better than the old one, but I think it serves as an example of how a design can be _too_ simple.
I worry that in our effort to comfort really poorly designed flags and establish design principles to foster better ones, that we become rigid and dogmatic, leading to an assembly of flags that look formulaic and safe. Sometimes it would be ok to exceed 3 colors. South Africa’s flag is just fine. Sometimes it should be ok to include letters. The c in Colorado’s flag is not an abomination.
Agreed!
The Druze flag is very cool and it's technically "too colorful" according to the guidelines
Oh boy, vexillology fights! I'm here for it!
Solid stuff, my man! Sounds like you should publish this book? Might be a killing involved!
Shoutout to the Republic of Venice, that has one of the most complex flags in history, yet, one of the most beautiful and distinctive.
oh yes
if only it had one
I was half expecting the Dutch government redesign to pop up when talking about adapting a seal into a logo. It's an interesting case study of rebranding an enormous amount of ministries and departments with separate identities into one (two if you include military) unified brand identities. It's what the Nixon era redesign could have been.
Oooh, I wanna know more about that! Can you suggest a video or an article that talks about it, please?
I personally think Arabic calligraphy on flags look really good, actually!
I’m a minimalist and even I think the oversimplification of flags is too much. People complained when logos remove some details, now flags are becoming a few triangles and yet it becomes “symbolic”
You're saying it's not kind to critique bad examples, but that's what you mostly do on your channel and that's what makes your channel so fun to watch!
Rules for thee and not for me! ;) But honestly, I was specifically talking about in the context of design guidelines. But there's definitely entertainment value in critiquing bad examples, at least, I hope!
In fairness, it's not like a lot of people feel personally invested in a font, you know?
@@mylittledashie7419 I know some people who are invested in fonts in ways you won't believe 😂
I’m honestly surprised that the principle you agreed with the most was the 2-3 basic colors principle - that’s the one I DISAGREE with the most. The sheer number of incredible flags I can think of with 4 or more colors or else non-standard colors makes me think that that principle is the most obvious candidate for exclusion
Did you forget the whole bit where he was talking about how the best flags are the ones that break from the conventions?
@@mylittledashie7419 fair point, but there are so sheerly many exceptions to the rule that I think to even call it a good guideline to loosely follow is too much. To be fair, I think the way he formulated it at the end, with like (I watched it yesterday so I’m sorry if I get the wording wrong) “two to three basic colors for the main field of the flag,” was a good way to put that and does generally work as a guideline with a lot fewer exceptions.
I agree. South Africa and Seychelles are examples of great flags with 5-6 colors. 🇿🇦 🇸🇨.
The best exception to that is the classic Pride flag. It's a rainbow, and the meaning of it is that it's supposed to have _all_ of the colours. The new one misses that point by being explicit.
This 100% needs to be made into an actual pamphlet. While the "Good Flag Bad Flag" pamphlet has led to some marginally better flags it has caused more boring flags than anything else.
With so many people championing GFBF in videos out of principle for 'good design' it's nice to finally hear from a seasoned, professional designer.
I think it's interesting to look at car crests when talking about seals or coats of arms. A number of car brands started with seals and had to reduce them to fit in a center cap. Porsche and Cadillac both simplified and cut elements to make cohesive and distinctive logos.
And the Cadillac crest is utterly meaningless. The Porsche crest relates back to existing crest of the city if Stuttgart. Volkswagen also pays homage to the city crest of Wolksburg. Every state, hamlet, county or city has a crest and some are seeped in history. Some are surprisingly abstract, or nothing more than patterns (see BMW).
@@boxsterman77 The BMW logo's pattern is a tribute to the flag and coat of arms of the Kingdom of Bavaria under which it was founded (the name BMW, Bayerische Motorenwerke, means Bavarian Motorworks in English), so it isn't quite meaningless.
@@boxsterman77 Apart from the BMW crest being a clear reference to the origin of its name, i.e. Bavaria, how does VW pay homage to Wolfsburg? The VW logo is (and has been since the 1930s) just a VW in a circle. The city crest of Wolfsburg is a rather complex design but has no V or W shape anywhere.
Not to mention that the city of Wolfsburg is _younger_ than the car manufacturer, and was founded specifically to house VW, so if anything, it would be the other way around.
@@boxsterman77 The Cadillac crest is based on the Maryland flag
@@JoaoSilva-yh4dgNo, it’s based on Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac’s family coat of arms. He founded Detroit.
One thing that I haven’t seen addressed that both Premodernist and JJ Mcullough bring up is why flags need to be “designed” like corporate logos. Why are we accepting the framing of graphic design as the appropriate one to apply to historical symbols like flags? I get that this is a graphic design channel, but I think Premodernist makes a very good case that historical significance could be more important than graphic design. By assuming that flags should adhere to graphic design principles and function as logos for a state or city, we’re implicitly accepting a capitalist framing that a state or city is a brand that needs to be represented as such. I would have liked to seen some attempt to justify why it’s appropriate to think of flags as needing to conform to a brand rather than just be whatever the city or state or whatever feels most comfortably represents them.
A "brand" is, in its essence, not something inherently capitalist or related to corporate. It's just the corporate name for meaningful symbolism to strengthen identity and cohesion, a feature that is strongly ingrained in human culture. As such, historical references often come from exactly that - meanginful symbolism that was a "brand" in the past. France's Tricolore is the "brand" of the French Revolution, coming from a symbol used by the revolutionaries to emphasise their common cause. A red banner is a universal symbol of the workers' movement, thereby creating a sense of solidarity - and serving as a "brand" for basically everything coming from that origin, together with stars, hammer and sickle, and the colour yellow as contrast. Many "overly complex" designs are based on coats of arms - which by themselves originated as "logos" that could be very quickly identified and distinguished.
All of these have historic roots, but they also work great as "logos" for their respective entities or ideas.
Graphic design principles don't exist because of corporations, they exist because they are based on human nature, esp. perception and memory, itself.
There is nothing “corporate” about simplicity and clarity of design. The flag of France is beautiful and instantly recognisable, that doesn’t make it “corporate”.
Flags are often simple because of the medium they exist on: fabric. Often is has straight lines and not too many elements that need to be sown together. These are principles that fit the medium the design produced in.
To me, the American state flags with the seals look more “corporate”/look more like logos. Because that is what they are. The “design” is just the seal put on a background. They are designs that weren’t made for the medium (flag, fabric). They are just put on a flag as an afterthought, like the shell flags at the gas station
Flag is meant to be very recognizeable, there should ofc be meaning in the flag, but just assigning flag creates meaning for it, since it becomes your flag.
Ultimately, easy recognition is most important. Because this is going to represent you atound world, and more people recognize it better.
Cool design is ok, but doesn't mean anything if you can't tell what it is from distance or if it's patch on someones arm.
this is an incredibly real video to make, from a flag nerd of over 7 years.
New state flags got me going "oh, another one of _those_ "
Maine’s flag proposal has a tree that is kind of detailed. Made some people really angry. That is good, mix it up a little
Good pamphlet, bad pamphlet
I really appreciate the time you took for nuance in your argument. A real breath of fresh air. Thanks for the video!
GFBF helped me develop a flag design project that earned me a nomination to join the AGI, but what a pleasant surprise to see you elaborate on some of the shortcomings I worked around while designing 32 different flags. Kudos!
The thing about a city flag I suppose is it won't be shrunk to a lapel pin or enlarged to the size of a football field. It'll be flown over city hall and other public buildings. It identifies 'local government in here.'
I disagree.
"If you had a great city flag, you would have a banner for people to rally under to face those more important things."
That comes from a Ted Talk by Roman Mars, creator and narrator of 99% invisible, and it’s always stuck with me.
Sure, a basic city flag will just be place marker, but so can a seal on a side a building. Flags are unique because when they’re done well, they become a symbol of not just the government of the city, but the people of the city.
Look at Chicago, or Baltimore, or St. Petersburg. Cities where the flag isn’t just a marker for municipal buildings, by the thesis by which the city controls its branding and a representation of itself to the world.
Basic flags are fine. There’s nothing inherently wrong with beige, vanilla, or filter coffee. They’re all fine things in and of themselves, but they become so so much better when combined with more complex and complimentary counterparts to complete a cohesive, compelling composition.
It just takes people that collectively agree to care about it enough.
When thinking of national flags, I think the big exception is where there's a strong calligraphic tradition (this is not to contradict, but to add/clarify the words point).
"You know it when you see it" tends to be true. The other thing is if people use it, it tends to be serving its function. I think the Maryland flag is uniquely hideous, but I also love it because everyone and their dog has some article of clothing or sticker featuring it.
It’s a matter of symbolism vs. effectiveness. Good flag, bad flag is confusing because it’s meant to explain what makes a flag effective, but then also dabbles in symbolism. What you should do is read GFBF to understand effectiveness, and then read Brian Cham’s dealbreakers of flag design to understand symbolism.
Ignore effectiveness, and it won’t fulfill the purpose a flag.
Ignore symbolism, and the flag won’t be flown.
Well said! 👍
Thanks. This encapsulates my thoughts on how Good Flag, Bad Flag and Six Deal-Breakers ought to complement each other. I never saw these as conflicting and I don't like people hijacking my presentation/article as if it were some kind of rebuttal to Good Flag, Bad Flag.
That pamphlet is basically 2 points disguised as 5. 1. Keep it simple. 2. If you use a symbol only use 1 because being simple is better. 3. Use no more than 3 basic colours because simple is better. 4. Never use lettering or seals because that would not be simple and rule 1 says keep it simple. 5. Be distinctive but not TOO simple. What is a group supposed to do with this information?
It's like someone heard about minimalism once at a conference and then decided to teach design to people while ignoring the problem to solve which is that there are thousands of countries, states, provinces, cities, schools, organizations and teams and if all of them change their flags to a 2 or 3 primary colour horizontal striped design with an icon in the middle we are going to have a lot of identical flags out there.
The funny thing about this is that we've already had historical examples of this. For instance, the flag of England (St. George's Cross) was used earlier (and still is used) as the flag of Genoa. Imagine if the Republic of Genoa was still an independent nation!
@@n8pls543 we even have current examples, with Chad's and Romania's or Luxembourg's and Netherland's flags.
I get your point. My work around here is that Ted has a good list but for me it's in the wrong order. "Simple" should be part of that final pull together process.
Symbology should always be the prime decision in all of this. It should aim to be unique and fully representative of well established official symbology.
The visual message of the details should be in harmony with the colors of the field. There really should not be more than four colors in total.
History counts, and retro linkage is better than new whatever.
When you think you have it about right, think deeper and tighten the focus if it helps. That should be the limit of trying to keep it simple.
I really enjoy this! The video makes a great compliment to to the Premodernist one, taking more of a graphic design approach rather than one based on history or material culture.
glad someone is talking about GFBF critically and hoping to adapt it to newer thoughts of design and other stuff
This video is an absolute banger, thank you so much!
Thank you thank you THANK YOU for putting the most coherent voice yet to all my thoughts on GFBF. Currently working on something in Pennsylvania and this video is now on my list of things decision-makers *need* to see.
This absolutely is an insightful way of presenting the FULL picture of subject.
Well done, Linus! 🎉
A few years ago I started a project to redesign the flags of US/Canada states/provinces/territories. Mostly because I hate my own state's (Michigan). I don't think I'd heard of "Good Flag, Bad Flag" until now, but apparently I adopted some of its principles as rules - e.g. "no words", "no years", "no seals" - mostly because "rules" gave me the freedom to slash-and-burn if I wanted. Especially for the ones with racist history. However, I did make exceptions. One of my favorite things to do with seals was - as you suggest - to pull elements out of them... I found some neat things in some of the seals that yielded some designs I like a lot. There were also a few that I couldn't improve on, and I left those as-is. [link in reply]
I'd love your guess as to why the final version of the new Minnesota flag is just two-color. The submitted design it's mostly based on included a tricolor area I very much prefer to the flat blue. It went from overdense to jarringly sparse, I think, though I prefer the new one.
I like the new flag; it’s an improvement over its old “seal on a bedsheet. But I prefer some of the other finalists in the contest.
No need to guess, the committee discussions that led to that change are on the public record. The short answer is that after reviewing several potential variations, the selection committee was swayed by a demonstration of the winning one where it was pointed out that, when hung in it's vertical orientation, it resembles a night sky with the North star (MN's state motto is "l'Etoile du Nord" i.e. "the Star of the North") over the Mississippi river (which has it's source in the state).
Personally, while I did initially prefer the tricolor, I have already seen variants of the flag that have put other logos (such as sports teams) in the light blue field, and it works really well. I like that our new flag has the flexibility to be adapted without losing any of it's defining characteristics.
@@farmboyjad That it still looks interesting when hanging vertically is neat.
Now I wanna see a long video where you share thoughts on the final designs of recent redesigns. I’m biased because I live in an area that’s had a few on the city and state levels in the past 20 years or so. Haha
CGPGrey's damage to flag making might take decades to heal.
I’ve never been so early to a Linus vid! Fantastic video as always, flag content is always fun to watch
@LinusFlagTips 😆
You've inadvertently explained why I dislike so many of the rash of new county flags we've had in the UK over the last few years: they look like logos scaled up. I don't think that's good design for a flag per se - flags need to be recognisable when not flat, logos don't. But I also think it's inappropriate for political entities older than most countries (older than UK or its nations in some cases) to have flags that look like they were designed on a computer for a £100 tax dodge company yesterday.
Couldn't disagree with you more. I simply think flags are for the people they represent. If the people like the flag and use/display it, then that's a win, and the only win worth counting. OR we can apply your elitist standards and have a flag that is only used in government buildings because the average person doesn't care about it or like its design.
@@friendlybane You should be an athlete with that jumping ability.
People care about pretty things. The Venician flag is the most popular flag in the city, and it isn't exactly a tricolour. The flag of Maryland is more popular than the US flag in the state. It's the most complicated flag in the US.
The idea that working class people don't care for complex designs, is it's self elitist. People care about good designs.
And I agree with OP. A county tracing it's heritage to the Doomsday Book shouldn't have a flag that makes it look like a Microsoft subsidiary. It should be proud of its history, and look good.
@@billygoatgruff3536 Neither the OG comment or my comment talked about "complex flags" anywhere, or even implied it. You've just manufactured an argument in your own head. The irony of talking about "jumping" when you did exactly that without reading the 2 comments you are responding to.
I live in Colorado and our flag looks like a "logo" or whatever. And yet, I see the flag everywhere every single day. Hats, shirts, bumper stickers, storefronts, etc. People love it, regardless of whether @henryblunt8503 thinks it was "designed on a computer for a £100 tax dodge company yesterday."
@@billygoatgruff3536 who said anything about "working class people"? Thats your own political point you're choosing to insert.
If people thought a design was good, then they wouldn't be supporting a redesign to begin with, simple as.
If you want to have opinions on exactly what some other community should be proud of, congrats, but I'm not sure what gave you the impression that anybody needed you to show it ofd.
My biggest irk with GFBF is that it is used to justify changing a flag that does not fit the "principles."
I believe design is NOT what determines whether a flag good. A flag is *good* if the people whom the flag represents like and enjoy the flag. You could have an "atrociously designed" flag, like Pocatello Idaho, but if the people of Pocatello _like_ the flag than it is a _good_ flag.
I worry that there is an insidious prescriptivism that instigates these flag changes.
I think 'easy for a child to draw a recognizable form from memory' is a more applicable guideline for country flags than for city flags...
...And I'd still prefer national flags to look more like the Welsh flag with a cool freaking dragon on it which I couldn't draw from memory now I'm in my late 30s let alone 30 years ago than the seemingly infinite tricolours continental Europe has to offer. But maybe the Welsh flag is an exception.
The Welsh flag is probably the prime example of "so easy to draw a child could do it". Take any field of green/white and draw a vaguely lizard-like red squiggle on top - congrats, you've drawn a serviceable Welsh flag. You could even just forgo the representation entirely and just write "DRAGON" in red crayon and I'm pretty sure most people would immediately understand what they're looking at.
The original title is "GOOD" FLAG, "BAD" FLAG, but those quotation marks are unually ommitted by those who threat thoses rules (which aim to avoid pitfalls in flag design) as invariable laws to design flags which have to be good by definition.
What we need is a design guideline for design guidelines.
The problem with seals on state flags is that they’re not distinguishable at any sort of distance. I can’t tell what state it is from the art, I have to look at tiny words, and all the seals on blue are identical in Actual Flag Use Scenarios
Ah, the backlash to the backlash (to the thing that’s just begun)
(Well, begun at least a decade ago)
I frankly dislike the influence of this book. It advocates bad flags which look like logos and fictional works that use them have shitty samey flags.
I would love to see what you think of the Minnesota flag and seal redesigns.
Oooo...... I was agreeing with every word you said until the very last sentence. There is no place for crocs. 😅
I feel like “Good Flag, Bad Flag” has lead to a lot of bland/generic designs as well. Too reliant on geometric shapes for their designs as virtually anything else is frowned upon. Think the flag redesigns of Mississippi & Utah being better received than Minnesota’s. Or how the “ Appalachian” flag has been far less visible compared to the Cascadia flag despite similar origins.
Isn't the reason for Minnesota's flag not being all that well recieved that they massively changed it right at the end? And really that's just a problem with design by commitee, which made plenty of bad flags before GFBF came around.
I still believe that seals and lettering are great tbh
9:43 this happens occasionally within queer communities actually. for example, the current lesbian pride flag!
Bold of you to assert people soundly pay to see comic panels voiced by actors. That sounds awesome!
me at 17: "i am the understander of vexilology! adhere or perish!!!"
me at 24: "do whatever, man, fuck it, have words if you want. brazil does"
There have been other guides all along, fun to find. Tony Burton's Vexillographics is a book rather than a pamphlet. I prefer 'clear' to 'simple' ..
Japanese kamons are so close to this subject. Would be interested to hear your take on these too!
I thought this video was gonna be about an edition of the Bible with a flag themed cover design and idk if I should be relieved or disappointed that it isn't 😅
Glad im not the only one 😂😂
I find it interesting that you start out with a discussion of how Good-Flag-Bad-Flag absolutism is a problem that arises commonly in the real world, and then later dismiss the "examples of exceptions" section as unnecessary. It seems to me that, if anything, it should have been more prominent!
I think this points to one of the fascinating things about flag design, which is that often flags are not designed by professional designers, and the debates that shape their designs certainly involve many people who are not professional designers. And often they involve people who arguably have neither good taste nor good design sense, at least in the views of other people involved in the debate. I would guess that one of the reasons for GFBF's popularity and persistence is that, while Ted Kaye did not have formal design background, he had a very keen sense of how flag-design debates tend to go, and a very keen ability to write something useful for a person in the midst of one.
Invite Ted Kaye on! He'll probably take your call! He's very friendly.
Often the simplicity mandate is justified by some naval flag origin story set on the high seas, and this is somewhat accurate for many famous National European flags. The problem is that this isn't the only origin for flags in Europe, many originate in rather detailed banners which would have never been flown at sea. This is especially common for the flag of a region or city within a larger nation. Many of these very detailed heraldry derived flags are rather popular, the Welsh love theirs.
TL;DR: The design guideline is pretty good actually, but shouldn't be used without critical thought.
My favourite flag is the St. Pierre et Miquelon flag. You already know my opinion on this topic.
Excellent choice, the flag itself shows the story of the isles.
@@evanpereira3555 the flag just screams "diddly diddly diddly doo, we sailed the seven seas, also we have way too much lore so don't ask" like straight up pulling the Basque and Brittany into it like a pair of obscure historical flashbangs just to bamboozle everyone who sees it
People treating good advice as unbreakable dogma is a standard problem in most fields.
The next step after that is that an antagonistic group sprouts up complaining that the good advice (that was never intended to be universal) isn't universal.
Then it becomes the new dogma for a while that the original advice is bad actually because it isn't universally applicable.
Then the advice gets slowly forgotten about because people stop giving the advice.
Then somebody reinvents it. Return to beginning.
As others have asked, I'm curious if you have any thoughts on the new Minnesota flag specifically. I'm especially interested in what you think of their selection process; I'm fairly convinced that a large part of the backlash to the final design was due to how publicly it all played out. On one hand, I appreciate the transparency and amount of public engagement, but on the other I think it led to a lot of people who were not familiar with an iterative design process getting attached to proposed flags and inevitably feeling let down when their favorite didn't win or, even in the case of the "winning" design, when it underwent significant revisions before being finalized. If the final flag had been presented with no prior discourse, I think it would have been received much more positively.
For the record, as a Minnesotan, I'm actually really happy with what we landed on.
I was so expecting even a smidge of finger wagging at the CGPGrey video the whole time, but I guess you technically did it indirectly
Did he? When?
Great to have your expertise on this! Also Premodernist is equally great in his field :)
I'm so glad people are waking up to this insanity. no, we don't need to make every flag stupid flat modern looking corporate logo. when people like CGP show their ideas for alternatives I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. tradition>modern design trends.
Phenomenal video essay!! 👏
Maryland is my favourite US state flag and it completely goes against "good flag bad flag". If they ever change it the US will be considered a failed state in my mind.
It is not an exception to the rule. But why the "good flag bad flag" rules are not rules at all! Just a subjective opinion presented as a guide.
Nepal's flag also breaks every convention and it is one of the most iconic flags for a reason.
My observation is that people watch a single YT video and then think they're expert flag critics. This sudden movement to redo many state/city flags into overly simplified, meaningless banners is not something I support. There were many better flags proposed for Minnesota, Mississippi and Utah.
What has actually happened is that GFBF gave a lot of people the tools they needed to express why they didn't like a lot of flags.
Have you ever seen a movie you didn't like, but struggled to explain why you didn't like it because you're not overly familiar with the techniques used in film making, and then seen someone's review of the movie that made you go "Oh right! *That* was what bothered me about it"? It's the same thing. People don't think they're expert flag critics, they just feel more able to express the opinions they already had about flags.
You know CGP Grey has been considering outlining a response to Premodernist ever since that video went up. He is surely within a few months of weighing pros and cons and deciding to plan the video. In three years he's gonna have a banger of a video responding to these attacks.
Considering how obtuse his first video was with an uncreative, strict adherence to poorly worded rules I doubt it.
@@pascalfibonacci I'd just like to quote a line or two very start of that video *ahem*
"[Designing a good flag is] a tough task, though not too tough with the *GUIDELINES* I gave you. One) Keep it simple, something a child could draw, *EVEN IF THEY NEED TO SIMPLIFY IT AGAIN* [...] 3) 3 colours or fewer, *UNLESS YOU REALLY KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING* [...] 5) Words on a flag: the *IDEAL* number is zero"
Wow, yeah, really "strict adherence" to the rules. Nevermind that he positively rates several flags that break the rules later on. Did you guys even watch the video, or have you just been told that some youtube guy is the cause of all your vexillological woes?
@mylittledashie7419 Yeah I did watch it and it was the final bad faith take that caused me to unsubscribe and stop watching his videos (see also his complete dismissal of all oral history, which btw is pretty racist).
Perhaps strict isn't the best word but arbitrary especially his treatment of the California, Colorado, and Ohio flags.
I feel bad for any kids who had him as a teacher in real life because he seems miserable and opposed to joy and creativity.
@@pascalfibonacci Arbitrary is the complete opposite of strict. And that's what we all do, we're all arbitrarily deciding which flags we like and which one's we don't because it's an entirely subjective thing. I don't know how you can expect it to be anything other than subjective.
So where was the bad faith? He very clearly set them up as guidelines that you don't have to follow, but are decent rules of thumb, and he employs them as guidelines that are rules of thumb for the kind of flags he likes, but doesn't follow strictly if he doesn't want to. How is that bad faith?
Bad faith is actually randomly bringing up an unrelated (and unsourced) claim about how he feels about oral history when it has nothing to do with the conversation, just to call him racist.
And just so we're clear, I'm not a "racism has no meaning" type, I'm deep into breadtube, I'm about as lefty as they come and it would affect my opinion of him if he really does have racist views, but regardless it's still bad faith to bring them up out of no where to try and prove you're right about an unrelated issue.
@mylittledashie7419 He is arbitrarily strict. I never said he argued in bad faith. It is that his opinions on the flags are presented in a way that suggests they are more objective than they are and with a complete disregard for more nuanced design principles.
Further I bring up his dismissal of oral history (which if you watched his videos, as you claim I don't, you would know is in the one about who owns liberty Island and the story of the boat race around it) to make a point that he has an overly literal and uncreative approach to the world that results in bad takes. See also his dislike of jazz music because it is not a useful tool to help him focus (I don't remember which video this is from, and I don't care enough to go check).
Given his, shall we say, overly scientific approach to the world, I am skeptical that he would fully digest the criticisms in a video such as this and provide an adequate response. Also, he seems to have an arrogance about assuming he is right a lot of the time, so that makes a good response even less likely.
Btw I don't think he intends to be racist but there certainly is racist undertones in dismissing all oral history as "hearsay."
Unsourced. How about you watch some more of his videos and get an idea of the man as a whole because I've watched hime for years, and at some point, it became too annoying to watch anymore.
You demonstrate a superb understanding of design
Just a small observation, no shade thrown on any person, but I noticed that for a long time these design rules were cherished by many folks until just recently when a few folks made videos against them. Now being against these rules is fashionable. I wonder what exactly happened?
My guess would be that a number of state flag redesigns (namely Utah and especially now Minnesota) have ignited conversation around the simplistic style championed by GFBF. I think Minnesota's redesign has been especially controversial and has changed a lot of people's opinion on the GFBF design philosophy
I've noticed this stuff too, my interpretation is that it's been long enough since Good Flag, Bad Flag seeped into the public consciousness that now people are re-evaluating its message, which also works because (at least from my non-graphic designer layman view) design has swung away from the minimalism that was big in the 2010s, and the stripped down design ethos Good Flag Bad Flag argued for.
It's called thermostatic public opinion. 10 years ago almost nobody even really thought about flag design. Then some high profile influencers (like CGP Grey) drew attention to these guidelines and it resonated with a lot of people. It felt like a sort of hidden knowledge that explained something they may have felt but never really thought much about or articulated, and it caught on.
As a result it started getting it's own cult following, who had some political successes, and sometimes might have been a bit too zealous about it, which lead to some people thinking it went too far and offering some pushback on it.
Basically anything that becomes popular has a backlash. If the backlash becomes too popular then it too gets a backlash. And so on for as long as interest remains in talking about it.
Also a possibility, people thought these rules were great, but when it came to practical situations, they realized there were some issues
What happened is that doofuses like CGP Gray started taking it upon themselves to critique flags as a way of signalling their superiority in a very niche subject that most people are ambivalent about without bothering to understand how or why many “bad” flags came to look the way they do. It’s an obnoxious kind of cultural revisionism that assumes that there’s something to “fix” and that the “solution” is to be found in the rigid orthodoxy of a pamphlet that you have never heard of.
Finally someone said it.
Suggestions become guidelines
Guidelines become dogma
and some alternatives
which should have not be mocked
were lost
Nice to see that you're here aswell
@@AlOstosman I am one of the early critics of GF-BF dogmatism
Fascinating stuff, Linus. Thanks.
Although you lose points for the typography at 11:50! LOL
A couple of things that I have come to learn (while not in a desgin field, I feel applicable).
1. There is a reason why a design was that way. Understanding the jounary it took to get to where it was is important. While as an outside observer it might seem odd or wrong for certain choices, without knowing why (and not presuming but finding out) a certain choice was made, you can end up wasting time taking the same jounary only to produce something similar.
2. Don't ignore the user. Getting feedback and understanding it at all stages is very imporant. Reality (in this case representing people) can easly become distorted if you don't check often. This could be the importance of certain symbols, compasions etc. While we are all aware that uses might not know what they want, they do know if they like something or not. Understanding and not warping feedback is a big skill but important.
My favourite crest simplification: Glasgow City Council's highlighting of the fish on either side.
Great video! Shout out to Roman Mars’ brilliant and hilarious TED talk about city flags. A must watch.
GFBF seems to be misunderstood as some sort of strict ruleset by some flag reformists instead of some guidelines written by a non-expert for non-experts. It discusses some common properties of good flags and bad flags, then suggests for others to not stray too far from properties found in good flags and to not get to close to those found in bad flags, not because failing to do so makes the flag bad, but rather because it makes it easier to make good flags and avoid making bad flags. Of course, what flags are good and what flags are bad are the opinions of the writer and not some absolutes.
Awesome video as always mate
The core issue is what flags are used for. For example, I live in Colorado and see the State flag daily. I've also lived in States with "Coat of Arms" Flags and never once saw them. Is the Colorado flag better? YES, absolutely. Why, because regular everyday Coloradans use it often because of it's "simple" but recognizable design. Flags are for people. And it's not a debate what type of flags people like.
My thoughts on this are very similar. If a flag doesn't follow the traditional rules of design, but people love it and use it anyways, it's a good flag, end of story.
One thing I noticed about many bad flag designs is that the problem isn't really with these guideline rules, but with more universal design principles like use of space and detail density.
Especially those 'seal flags' often put a highly detailed seal in front of a solid colour background (and often with poor colour coordination on top of that).
The result seems too busy in a small center while having a jarringly empty background.
Brazil and Portugal are nice examples to the opposite. They contain large shapes to break up the background and have a rising detail-gradient towards the center, rather than an abrupt 100% detail/0% detail-boundary.
While classic three-stripes designs, like those of most European countries, have the simplest solution by only having one equally spaced (more or less at least) level of detail. The flag of Serbia then adds one level of detail on top in form of its seal, which is nicely spaced and scaled.
Why do i think you are going to be the next guest on Fun With Flags?
I loved Big Bang Theory!
The guide is a product of its time to reinforce design trends of contemporaries who have given it thought. Who is to say in 100 years we won't return to incredibly intricate designs of such as heraldic symbols with the complexity of a QR code.
I love the Welsh flag. Can I draw it? No. Is it amazing. Yes. It has Y Ddraig Goch on it.