Proposals for a flag of a Swedish SSR

I have a little side project I work on occasionally whereby I redesign various national flags as though they were from an SSR consisting of that country. The most recent flag I've attempted to redesign is the Swedish flag. I've talked to charl, one of our resident Swedes, about the idea and he provided some good advice, mainly the fact that the traditional cross would have to be removed due to its association with Christianity and the monarchy, and the fact that white is Sweden's unofficial third national colour, and that has allowed me to come up with this range of flags:



They're all using an emblem I designed based off the logo of the Communist Party of Sweden. The text on the emblem says "Svenska Folksocialistiska Rådsrepubliken" which translates as "Swedish Popular Socialist Council Republic".

The only problem is, I can't decide which one is best! I'm leaning towards 2 and 5, since they're the most communist-looking, but pretty much all of them are good in my eyes. What do you think, comrades? I've made the poll multiple choice so you can choose all the ones that you think look good, instead of just choosing the one flag you think is the very best (such a system is a clearly a vicious, anti-socialist tool used by the capitalist pig-dogs in order to maintain their supposedly popular dominance over the hard working and long suffering proletariat!).

(And before you say anything I know that a realistic Swedish SSR flag would probably just be a red banner with the hammer and sickle and a few bars of colour. I'm asking which flag looks best, not which one is most realistic.)

2, 5, and 8 have too much going on.

In my opinion 1 is by far the best of the lot- it's simple, striking, and puts just the right amount of emphasis on each of the individual parts of the flag to make it pleasant to look at. 8 is rather nice as well, and 6 and 3 are rather good, but 1 is far and away the best.

1, 3, 6, 7 or 8 are pretty good. If I had to pick one, I'd have to say 1.

In my humble opinion, I think 6 would look good and communist with the right hand side red. Something like below. The second one's just me playing around with the colours.



Anyway, just a suggestion.

Out of yours I like Nos. 2, 3, 6 and 7 (North Korea?). I still think most of them could use more red, but if you're looking at ATL communism it might not use that.

I like the "sunburst" more on 2 than 5 (and 8 is rather overpowering), it reminds me of the Sw-Nor Union badge, or for some reason the Finnish Order of the Cross of Liberty, especially on the presidential flag. That's just how my mind works...

Personally I like 3 and maybe 6. 7 is good, but maybe the colours should be switched around so there isn't so much white in it? It'd be terrible if it was confused for a surrender flag in the field.

charl said:

Personally I like 3 and maybe 6. 7 is good, but maybe the colours should be switched around so there isn't so much white in it? It'd be terrible if it was confused for a surrender flag in the field.

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There is actually a very specific reason why the emblem is on white in the centre instead of blue or yellow. The red cog doesn't work well on the blue since they're of similar shades, and putting the emblem on yellow makes it look somewhat old-fashioned and eastern European to my eyes, whereas putting it on white makes it look more modern by making it stand out more.

Krall said:

There is actually a very specific reason why the emblem is on white in the centre instead of blue or yellow. The red cog doesn't work well on the blue since they're of similar shades, and putting the emblem on yellow makes it look somewhat old-fashioned and eastern European to my eyes, whereas putting it on white makes it look more modern by making it stand out more.

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I can see your point but from a vexicological point of view I can't help but think that white should be avoided as the main colour of a flag.

Also, you don't have to use the white just because you can. Flag three with just a wide yellow instead of a yellow/white middle strip would look quite good I'd think, although you'd run into the yellow-red emblem thing.

charl said:

I can see your point but from a vexicological point of view I can't help but think that white should be avoided as the main colour of a flag.

Also, you don't have to use the white just because you can. Flag three with just a wide yellow instead of a yellow/white middle strip would look quite good I'd think, although you'd run into the yellow-red emblem thing.

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Why not? As long as other colours/emblems clearly stand out, it's not a problem. There are lots of flags that have white as half the flag or place it in the central (and thus focal) point of the flag, not Least those of France, Italy, Ireland, North Cyprus, Indonesia, Lebanon and Cyprus

Alex Richards said:

Why not? As long as other colours/emblems clearly stand out, it's not a problem. There are lots of flags that have white as half the flag or place it in the central (and thus focal) point of the flag, not Least those of France, Italy, Ireland, North Cyprus, Indonesia, Lebanon and Cyprus

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Poland, England, Iran, India, Canada,Argentina, Mexico,Algeria, Niger,Russia, Kingdom of Jerseulem, Imperial Germany, Portugal (for a Period),Monarchic France,

Maybe it's my current fascination with striped flags but I went for 7, then 3.

Whilst white isn't generally a great base by itself, it works well here with the coloured stripes and the red emblem.
The emblem provides a good focal point - using another colour as the base would clash with it, as the gyronny versions show.
In fact I would go far to say that emblem works well enough on white that you could remove the top 2 stripes and have it work.

Alex Richards said:

Why not? As long as other colours/emblems clearly stand out, it's not a problem. There are lots of flags that have white as half the flag or place it in the central (and thus focal) point of the flag, not Least those of France, Italy, Ireland, North Cyprus, Indonesia, Lebanon and Cyprus

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The white in those flags are balanced out by other colours. It may be the colour of the focal point but it is not the main colour of those flags. Apart from Cyprus, who's flag I don't like (and wouldn't even if it wasn't white: you don't put maps on flags!). I'm not a fan of the North Cyprus flag either.

TurkishCapybara said:

Poland, England, Iran, India, Canada,Argentina, Mexico,Algeria, Niger,Russia, Kingdom of Jerseulem, Imperial Germany, Portugal (for a Period),Monarchic France,

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Balanced out in all of them (well, not the medieval ones but those are coats of arms so what are you going to do?).


In this particular case I find that the white dominates the flag in a quite unaesthetic way. Which obviously puts it under the subjective category, so not much use arguing about it.

I might like it better if the emblem was centred on the white field, thus drawing the focus.

You may want to start by looking at the flags of the SSRs that actually existed. Something all of them have in common is the hammer & sickle, blood red background and a distinguishing design element.

Firstly, I would start off with number 3 as a base. Secondly, I would remove the star from the logo and replace it with the hammer & sickle. Lastly, I would turn the outer blue edge to red and make the white & yellow stripe a tad bit thinner, maybe even adding a small blue line in the middle.

This is rough, but perhaps something like this? Maybe not as flashy as the other ones, but I think it looks more realistic.

Semmi said:

You may want to start by looking at the flags of the SSRs that actually existed. Something all of them have in common is the hammer & sickle, blood red background and a distinguishing design element.

Firstly, I would start off with number 3 as a base. Secondly, I would remove the star from the logo and replace it with the hammer & sickle. Lastly, I would turn the outer blue edge to red and make the white & yellow stripe a tad bit thinner, maybe even adding a small blue line in the middle.

This is rough, but perhaps something like this? Maybe not as flashy as the other ones, but I think it looks more realistic.

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Krall said:

(And before you say anything I know that a realistic Swedish SSR flag would probably just be a red banner with the hammer and sickle and a few bars of colour. I'm asking which flag looks best, not which one is most realistic.)

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You are silly.

Krall said:

You are silly.

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It seems that I am.
In that case, I like #5

I highly doubt that a swedish soviet style socialist republic would call itself "folksocialistisk". That term was coined (i believe) by Sven Olov Lindholm, the leader of the party Svensk Socialistisk Samling, which befor that was called Nationalsocialistiska Arbetarpartiet, or in english, National Socialist Workers Party. Maybe the word "folksocialism" has been used in other circumstanses, but not what i know.

Semmi said:

You may want to start by looking at the flags of the SSRs that actually existed. Something all of them have in common is the hammer & sickle, blood red background and a distinguishing design element.

Firstly, I would start off with number 3 as a base. Secondly, I would remove the star from the logo and replace it with the hammer & sickle. Lastly, I would turn the outer blue edge to red and make the white & yellow stripe a tad bit thinner, maybe even adding a small blue line in the middle.

This is rough, but perhaps something like this? Maybe not as flashy as the other ones, but I think it looks more realistic.

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I think this one looks the best.

Semmi said:

It seems that I am.
In that case, I like #5

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Ah, a man after my own heart!

blitzsturm said:

I highly doubt that a swedish soviet style socialist republic would call itself "folksocialistisk". That term was coined (i believe) by Sven Olov Lindholm, the leader of the party Svensk Socialistisk Samling, which befor that was called Nationalsocialistiska Arbetarpartiet, or in english, National Socialist Workers Party. Maybe the word "folksocialism" has been used in other circumstanses, but not what i know.

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Really? According to Wikipedia Popular Socialism ("folkesocialisme" in Danish) is a modern Scandinavian offshoot of socialism that sits somewhere between communism and social democracy, and I can't find any reference to Sven Olov Lindholm coining the term. It may be that I'm mistaken though - I'm not exactly well-versed in this area of history.

I voted 1, 3, 6 and 7. If I had to choose one it'd have to be 3; it's got the best proportions. I quite like Semmi's suggestion as well though.

Anyway, how's progress with this project? I haven't heard about this since the Romania poll.

Also, which countries are you planning to do?

Transparent Blue said:

Anyway, how's progress with this project? I haven't heard about this since the Romania poll.

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Well, this is actually the first flag I've attempted to make for this project since the Romania poll. I only post these polls when I'm indecisive about which flag to choose, though it appears my personal opinion clashes with most people's.

Transparent Blue said:

Also, which countries are you planning to do?

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All of them.

At the moment I've only done Belgium, France, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Sweden, though. Some countries are only getting minor changes to their flags, whilst others (like Sweden) are getting complete overhauls.