Flag Thread IV

[FlyingParafin]

Secular UK Flag

I would give an example, but it's against the rules as it's technically entering my own contest. Therefore, I can post an example in the regular flag thread later on today.

You've seen The Union Jack, but get ready for... The Union Bar code?

This is an example of making a flag without any religious imagery. Notice that the crosses and saltires have been replaced with regular vertical stripes. I thought I could secularize the UK flag. Y'know, with me being English and all.

From left to right are the Northern Ireland stripe and the St. George's stripe, as well as the Cornwall stripe and Wales stripe as an added bonus. The blue has been kept so that Scotland's still represented.

 

[xt828]

I've more or less finished/put aside my overhaul of the Australian flags. Take a look here (It's too big to fit comfortably here). More than happy to take feedback and answer questions.

 

[ByzantineCaesar]

My first try at a flag in a long, long while. It's supposed to be the national flag of the Empire of Opará, an alternate Brazil inspired by the namesake state in the Isaac's Empire TL. I combined Portuguese elements (the golden orb and the cross), the crown of Italy, the Brazilian cotton and coffee laurel and the coat of arms of the House of Pinto (OTL), would be Imperial House of Opará.

Too much white, I think. Perhaps a blue outline to the big cross would be nice.

 

[OAM47]

Crossposting with my contest entry. I might actually use this as a flag in a TL I'm thinking about doing, involving my map contest entry (that hasn't been unveiled yet).

Kingdom of Arabia

In this timeline, rather than a religious state, Arabia (Saudi or not, can be left up to the imagination) is a strong anti-imperialist ideology backed state. While the colors involved can be likened to the Pan-Arab colors, but are slightly different than the traditional interpretation. The layout has also been changed up drastically for artistic presentation. The switch from horizontal to vertical format hearkens to the geography of Arabia, with the blue (or black) seas on the side, lines with the white sandy beaches. The green in the center represents Arabia itself, bled over by a single crimson blood droplet representing the necessary sacrifices against Imperialist aggression. ITTL the crimson blood droplet was first used by Arabia, but later spread to other nations and movements in the former colonial sphere.

 

[Martin23230]

I've more or less finished/put aside my overhaul of the Australian flags. Take a look here (It's too big to fit comfortably here). More than happy to take feedback and answer questions.

Some nice ideas there, but I have to say I've never liked the typical idea of making all the state flags follow the same pattern. It sort of works for the territories at the moment, but replacing the blue ensigns with another copy-paste design is a little corporate for my tastes. Some of those flags I think would look far better if you removed the star and stipe, especially South Australia and Tasmania. Likewise replacing the three external territories' flags is a step backwards in my opinion. Individuality is key, that's why people would want to replace the current flags in the first place!

Still, I like the overall national flags - though I feel in those cases they would look better with the consistent colours. And I can't see the Queen's flag being redesigned like that - the coat of arms of the states would remain the same and I hate the idea of replacing the 100+ year old badge of NSW, for example, with that incredibly modern-looking logo.

 

[ramones1986]

The Oklahoman Tricolor
Full details on my DeviantArt page.

Thanks to Marc Pasquin for the shield

 

[xt828]

Some nice ideas there, but I have to say I've never liked the typical idea of making all the state flags follow the same pattern. It sort of works for the territories at the moment, but replacing the blue ensigns with another copy-paste design is a little corporate for my tastes. Some of those flags I think would look far better if you removed the star and stipe, especially South Australia and Tasmania. Likewise replacing the three external territories' flags is a step backwards in my opinion. Individuality is key, that's why people would want to replace the current flags in the first place!

I get where you're coming from with the corporate angle, but I feel that having a degree of uniformity reinforces the links between them all, and the template used is distinctly Australian. The state flags, with the white hoist+state colour fly they're pretty dissimilar by comparison with the current flags, which are all blue ensigns with the state badge. I do note that all the proposals I've seen to change the states' flags has them all on a common template, so I'd say that there is a wish to keep them similar but distinct.

Still, I like the overall national flags - though I feel in those cases they would look better with the consistent colours. And I can't see the Queen's flag being redesigned like that - the coat of arms of the states would remain the same and I hate the idea of replacing the 100+ year old badge of NSW, for example, with that incredibly modern-looking logo.

I'm not sure what you mean by consistent colours here. In the Queen's flag, the NSW element is the only one I wasn't sure about for precisely that reason, but at present the NSW, Qld and Victorian elements are pretty rubbish compared to how the state badges actually look, and the Tasmanian lion is fairly bad.

 

[caliph]

Made 3 flags for

The Islamic People's Republic of Hejaz
The Islamic People's Republic of Qatif
and The People's Republic of Egypt

All based in an Alt History where Communism spreads through the arab world

 

[Marc Pasquin]

Made 3 flags for

The Islamic People's Republic of Hejaz
The Islamic People's Republic of Qatif
and The People's Republic of Egypt

All based in an Alt History where Communism spreads through the arab world

I like the egyptian one but the other 2 are way too busy. For one thing, having both Alahu Akhbar and the shahada on the Hejaz flag seems redundant unless one was highly stylised (Also I don't think they would write Praise be to God upside down on half the flag) and 2 shades of the same colour never looks good. Similarly, using 2 scripts on the same flag (both Hejaz and Qatif) just looks odd.

 

[Commissar From Kiev]

I really like the Egyptian communist flag, but the other two are a bit too complex, like Marc says.

 

[Martin23230]

I get where you're coming from with the corporate angle, but I feel that having a degree of uniformity reinforces the links between them all, and the template used is distinctly Australian. The state flags, with the white hoist+state colour fly they're pretty dissimilar by comparison with the current flags, which are all blue ensigns with the state badge. I do note that all the proposals I've seen to change the states' flags has them all on a common template, so I'd say that there is a wish to keep them similar but distinct.

I agree that seems to be what people design but I never think it would work in practice. I like to try and consider realism, especially in such a political situation.

Flags should mean something to the people who they represent, and such uniformity in my opinion is a terrible idea. The Australian Federal Government shouldn't just be able to rebrand the states as if they were a line of soft drinks. Every state should have to have a referendum or competition to chose their own symbol, and even if you insist that your designs are one of the options all it would take is one vote to not go your way and the whole idea is ruined.

Likewise I still don't like how you're treating the external territories. They chose their own flags, in the case of Christmas Island through a competition in the '80s and had to fight for decades to make it official. Now you're overwriting their will and imposing standardised templates on them? How is that any different from British colonial flags?

I'm not sure what you mean by consistent colours here.

Sorry, by consistent colours I meant you should keep the hoist pattern the same for the national flags.

Quick and dirty mockup (I also changed the stars on the civil air ensign to gold, firstly to differentiate it from the air force one but also as a callback to the original civil air ensign used in WW2):



Those are elements of the central government, they can and should be consistent.

The states are separate entities, they should be distinct.

In the Queen's flag, the NSW element is the only one I wasn't sure about for precisely that reason, but at present the NSW, Qld and Victorian elements are pretty rubbish compared to how the state badges actually look, and the Tasmanian lion is fairly bad.

That's not really how it works. Since they are heraldic devices the elements are the important bits, not the exact design. Look at the Tasmanian lion here, here, here and here. All that matters is that it's a red lion in that pose, the number of hairs in its mane is irrelevant. That's an important difference between national symbols and corporate logos.

The coat of arms of England is three yellow lions on a red background. That's all it is, a description. So this, this, this and this are all perfectly valid representations.

Modern logos are the exact opposite. The Apple logo isn't just a white apple with a bite out of it, it's incredibly specifically designed. Likewise Volkswagen or Shell.

Sorry if that's a bit of a rant, I just wanted to explain my philosophy when it came to these sort of things.

 

[caliph]

I like the egyptian one but the other 2 are way too busy. For one thing, having both Alahu Akhbar and the shahada on the Hejaz flag seems redundant unless one was highly stylised (Also I don't think they would write Praise be to God upside down on half the flag) and 2 shades of the same colour never looks good. Similarly, using 2 scripts on the same flag (both Hejaz and Qatif) just looks odd.

well with the Hejaz i got another, simpler design.

For the qatif one, im not sure which calligraphy to remove

 

[Uhura's Mazda]

A crap little flag of a Britain in which the Fellowship Party have taken over in an evil dictatorship. IOTL, the Fellowship Party were quite cool, being in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament and environmentalism before these things were cool, and basing that on a Christian Socialist backdrop. Although they never got anywhere electorally, they had some famous members, including an ex-MP from the Common Wealth Party, the pianist from Flanders and Swann, the composer of Peter Grimes, the guy who played the best Number Two in The Prisoner and Spike sodding Milligan. Them being in charge of an authoritarian dictatorship is almost Vignette-worthy.

The St Andrews cross is a religious symbol while also giving it the looks of an actual UK flag; it crosses through a thing that is supposed to be a sword to symbolise pacifism. The bottom quadrant almost looks like a road, and there's a general forward movement. Also, the green signifies the environment, and the red is for Leftism, while the black is just there to look vaguely cool.

 

[The Professor]

A dodgy crosspost

The United Kingdom of the British Isles

The (brief) union of Scotland and Norway forces Edward I of England to declare himself King of Ireland (in order not to be outcrowned by a vassal) and he quarters his arms with the new ones of Ireland - 3 gold leopards on blue.
Forces under him and his successors would often fly a red and blue quartered flag often with a gold rose.
Butterflies lead to a Roses analogue following the end of the House of Clarence (there's no HYW here either) involving the House of Mortimer who adds a green rose.
Union with Scotland promotes a new flag and this is the one chosen by the King featuring a Sun-in-Splendour surrounded by the Mortimer green roses emblem.

 

[xt828]

I agree that seems to be what people design but I never think it would work in practice. I like to try and consider realism, especially in such a political situation.

Flags should mean something to the people who they represent, and such uniformity in my opinion is a terrible idea. The Australian Federal Government shouldn't just be able to rebrand the states as if they were a line of soft drinks. Every state should have to have a referendum or competition to chose their own symbol, and even if you insist that your designs are one of the options all it would take is one vote to not go your way and the whole idea is ruined.

Likewise I still don't like how you're treating the external territories. They chose their own flags, in the case of Christmas Island through a competition in the '80s and had to fight for decades to make it official. Now you're overwriting their will and imposing standardised templates on them? How is that any different from British colonial flags?

I think we'll just have to agree to disagree here. We already have uniformity of pattern between the federal and state flags, and I like it and decided to keep that in my design. The states are all getting something different from one another, in that their flags are very visually distinct while still be clearly Australian, wheras at present they aren't notably distinct from one another nor from any other Blue Ensign-derived flag in history.

My option on the practicalities is that if we were to change the flag of the nation, we would be presented with package deals to consider, rather than each state being able to go its own way, or at least would have very strong design guidelines imposed. In that context, I think it would be likely that all the state flags would bear a resemblance to one another and to the national flag.

The external territories are effectively colonies, and can have their autonomy revoked by Canberra at the stroke of a pen without consultation. Norfolk Island's Administrator arranged for the surrender of Norfolk's autonomy over the demonstrated will of the populace last year, and it's now part of NSW, but IIRC I'd already done the flag and so it stayed in.

Sorry, by consistent colours I meant you should keep the hoist pattern the same for the national flags.

Quick and dirty mockup (I also changed the stars on the civil air ensign to gold, firstly to differentiate it from the air force one but also as a callback to the original civil air ensign used in WW2):

Those are elements of the central government, they can and should be consistent.

The states are separate entities, they should be distinct.

I see what you're getting at now. I prefer the look of the way I have them. They are clearly Australian - where with the subnational entities the link to the federal government is made by combining the colours and fly of the national flag with the symbol of the state or territory, the ensigns copy the form of the national flag exactly and change the colours to those of the traditional ensign. Of particular note is that the civil ensigns aren't used by elements of the central government, and are explicitly for civil usage, and I don't think you want to muddy the waters by implying a link when there isn't one.

That's not really how it works. Since they are heraldic devices the elements are the important bits, not the exact design. Look at the Tasmanian lion here, here, here and here. All that matters is that it's a red lion in that pose, the number of hairs in its mane is irrelevant. That's an important difference between national symbols and corporate logos.

The coat of arms of England is three yellow lions on a red background. That's all it is, a description. So this, this, this and this are all perfectly valid representations.

Modern logos are the exact opposite. The Apple logo isn't just a white apple with a bite out of it, it's incredibly specifically designed. Likewise Volkswagen or Shell.

Sorry if that's a bit of a rant, I just wanted to explain my philosophy when it came to these sort of things.

I do understand where you're coming from, but in this modern age of incredibly specific designing, that is applied to traditionally defined flags - a quick google shows what the Queen's flag looked like last time she visited, and it's what I have listed as the original and what you can but online from various stores, and the state symbols look awful. The NSW symbol looks like it's been shrunk in the wash, the Victorian one like it's gotten jumbled, the Queensland one has put on weight, WA's is bizarrely facing the wrong way - which is a heraldic error - and the Tasmanian lion looks awful. I'm happy to grant that the Waratah flower that I put in for NSW is a fairly corporate image and doesn't fit as well as the others on the Queen's flag, but the others are as much corrections as improvements - I only changed three of the six.

 

[Zajir]

My idea of a new Nebraska flag

 

[caliph]

My idea of a new Nebraska flag

I like it.
Not sure if people from Nebraska would like it

 

[FlyingParafin]

3-Way Split Korea

I was looking at the Korean Ying Yang symbol and I thought that it was kind of fitting that a symbol depicting a circle equally split into two was the symbol of a country in the same situation. Then I started wondering about the Korean Holy Trinity symbol and if they used that symbol instead for the south Korean flag...

Then I wondered "What if Korea split into 3 instead of 2?"

The first flag is of an alternate Communist North Korea, which is considerably more "sophisticated" than OTL North Korea and pushes forward the idea of culture and "socialist realism" as opposed to doing what OTL NK does... such as, well, going completely crazy...

The flag shows a socialism-fueled Ying Yang to the left on a red background. The reason the Ying Yang is only in 2 instead of 3 is because of how this NK isn't (or at least doesn't act) scared of Middle Korea, only focusing on taking on the south. The fact that the red stripe is overtaking the yellow and blue ones are this Korea's way of showing that their socialist ideology will one day overtake the other 2 Koreas.

The next flag, "Middle Korea" as I like to call it, is of a straight-up fascist Korea with a brutal and totalitarian dictatorship (think of OTL NK again for a moment...) that sits between the communist north and the democratic south. Unlike the other koreas, it certainly doesn't sell itself as a republic...

The Yellow sword down the middle represents the middle korean people's (or, to a greater extent, the government's) dreams of overtaking both koreas by military might.

The third flag is of the peaceful and democratic South Korea with a flag with the holy trinity in the middle (this was nearly impossible to do in FlagMaker, so I had to do my own makeshift editing job here...)

The Blue, Yellow and Red tricolor with white stripes is a homage to all 3 koreas and their respective locations. The holy trinity symbol is also a symbol of the south's ambitions of co-operating peacefully with the whole pennisula, hence the 3 equal pieces of the circle.

 

[Marc Pasquin]

I was looking at the Korean Ying Yang symbol and I thought that it was kind of fitting that a symbol depicting a circle equally split into two was the symbol of a country in the same situation. Then I started wondering about the Korean Holy Trinity symbol and if they used that symbol instead for the south Korean flag...

Then I wondered "What if Korea split into 3 instead of 2?"

The first flag is of an alternate Communist North Korea, which is considerably more "sophisticated" than OTL North Korea and pushes forward the idea of culture and "socialist realism" as opposed to doing what OTL NK does... such as, well, going completely crazy...

The flag shows a socialism-fueled Ying Yang to the left on a red background. The reason the Ying Yang is only in 2 instead of 3 is because of how this NK isn't (or at least doesn't act) scared of Middle Korea, only focusing on taking on the south. The fact that the red stripe is overtaking the yellow and blue ones are this Korea's way of showing that their socialist ideology will one day overtake the other 2 Koreas.

The next flag, "Middle Korea" as I like to call it, is of a straight-up fascist Korea with a brutal and totalitarian dictatorship (think of OTL NK again for a moment...) that sits between the communist north and the democratic south. Unlike the other koreas, it certainly doesn't sell itself as a republic...

The Yellow sword down the middle represents the middle korean people's (or, to a greater extent, the government's) dreams of overtaking both koreas by military might.

The third flag is of the peaceful and democratic South Korea with a flag with the holy trinity in the middle (this was nearly impossible to do in FlagMaker, so I had to do my own makeshift editing job here...)

The Blue, Yellow and Red tricolor with white stripes is a homage to all 3 koreas and their respective locations. The holy trinity symbol is also a symbol of the south's ambitions of co-operating peacefully with the whole pennisula, hence the 3 equal pieces of the circle.

I think the 3rd one works the best from a design point of view though maybe I would have a wide white fimibration around the central emblem to avoid it touching the bands. It's not really an issue with the top and bottom one by the yellow one would bleed a bit even with the black edge.

 

[reesetelford9]

Tricolor of the Wabash Republic