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this is the Colorado state flag I bought it in a gift shop in Denver a few months ago and I was there I saw this flag everywhere it's on hats t-shirts stickers magnets postcards this hammock and my aunt even made this Colorado flag out of gene material but in my home state of Maine I don't see her own flag everywhere we still have a bunch of tourist merchandise but it typically uses the shape of the state a lobster or a moose but not the flag that's because Maine just doesn't have as good of a flag as Colorado this is good flag bad flag it was put together by Ted Kay editor of Raven a journal about vexillology the study of flags so this guy knows what he's talking about in the booklet Ted Kay lays out the five basic principles of flag design keep it simple use meaningful symbolism use two three basic colors no letter in your seals and be distinctive or be related good flags tend to follow these rules like the flag of Texas for example it's simple you can easily draw as meaningful symbolism the colors represent bravery purity and loyalty and the Lone Star's might represent Texas it only uses three colors it has no letter in your seals and it's related because it uses the red white and blue and a star to show Texas is relation to the US as a state the Texas flag is great flag its iconic you see you think yeah Texas I look at the Maine flag it's not simple it kinda has symbolism but it's a bit buried as a bunch of colors a bunch of words and a seal when it comes to rule number five technically it's related because it's a seal on a bedsheet design just like a bunch of other state flags but it doesn't work well you can't tell these flags apart they all look the same and they're all pretty bad in fact most of the US state flags are pretty bad they're only a handful of good ones so let's take a closer look at the rules of flag sign and the US state flags number one keep it simple a good flag should be simple because they usually seen from far away flapping in the breeze and flags need to be recognizable at a distance Ted K says that a flag should be so simple that a child can draw it from memory but another test is shrinking the flag down to a small size holding one of these little toothpick flags out at arm's length makes it about the same size as a flag flying faraway flag should be recognizable from far away so it should also be recognizable at a small size symbol flags look good at a small size while complex Flags do not number to use meaningful symbolism the purpose of Flags is to represent something good flags use meaningful symbolism to represent what they stand for for example on the Alaska flag the blue represents the sky the Big Dipper constellation represents a bear and strength and the North Star represents the future of Alaska on the New Mexico flag the symbol and center is related to the Pueblo and the red and yellow colors reference Spanish conquistadors both flags use effective symbolism to act as a symbol of their state many other US state flags also have symbolism but over the complex designs make for ineffective symbolism if I can't tell what's going on I have no idea what this is trying to represent simple and meaningful symbolism makes Flags effective at what they are clear representations of something in this case clear representations of States number three use two to three basic colors Ted Kay's guide recommends using two to three colors that contrasts well and are from the standard color set red blue green black yellow and white flags are made out of fabric and having too many colors makes production overly complicated and expensive also sticking to a few contrasting colors is just a good general design tip ko is the don't contrast well just generally don't look good and you want your flag to look good good flag stick to just a few colors more than three colors is okay Colorado has four colors and it looks fine just don't go crazy like Virginian put 18 colors on your flag number four no lettering or seals these are the big nose of flag design putting words on a flag is just poor design using words on your flag means that you haven't used effective symbolism if you have to write Montana across the top of your flag then the rest of your flag isn't doing a good enough job of representing the state on its own we don't write USA across the United States flag or United Kingdom across the Union Jack because those flags do well representing their respective countries without using words which is the whole point of a flag the other big no seals nearly half the US state flags have a seal on them and they're all terrible the problem is that seals are meant to be printed on paper where you can actually see them when flags are small or far away you can't see the seals this website lets you upload images to simulate what they look like when waiting on a flagpole when they're flying can you tell which of these is New Hampshire and which is Nebraska probably not all of these seal on a bedsheet flags are pretty much indistinguishable from each other which brings us to number five be distinctive or be related flags are usually best when either distinctive and unique like Ohio with its weird shape or related to other flags like how Texas flag uses similar colors and design to the United States flag or how the flags of the Nordic countries all incorporate the Nordic cross the best US state flags all stand out as unique and distinctive the seal and a bedsheet flags aren't distinctive or related none of them really stand out but they don't really fit well together either they're all a slightly different blue an entirely different color and they'll have different sized seals and you can't tell them apart it just doesn't work so those are the basic principles of flag design keep it simple use meaningful symbolism use two to three basic colors no lettering or seals and be distinctive or be related now let's take a look at all the US state flags these are the very best they're simple they look good when waving they're all distinctive and they're just solid designs that represent their States well these ones are okay they have the potential for a good design in them but they aren't quite there yet like Wyoming if you erase the awkwardly placed seal it's an amazing flag and the people of Wyoming know it they already sell hats that take out the seal because the Buffalo silhouette is great and these are the bad Flags there's no hope for these they're just terrible designs now some people have tried to redesign the flags for fun this project called united we stand aims to unify the flags by using the same color set well I think it's a neat idea I think they take the bee related thing too far the flags all look too similar and the states lose their unique character reddit user hello I'm Zach also try to redesigning the state flags and I think for the most part the pretty solid designs Indiana California Louisiana and Nebraska stand out to me and injure user Anthony Bouvier has a unique take on all this he used the sigil creater on the game of thrones website to create these and while I think they look really awesome I doubt they would be adopted in real life in fact I don't see the US state flags changing anytime soon because after all is redesigning the state flags really the most important issue facing our nation right now well no but a good flag is powerful Ted Kaye said it best often when leaders say we have more important things to do than worry about a city flag my response is if you had a great city flag you'd have a banner for people to rally under to face those more important things and I feel similarly for state flags we see firsthand what it can do for tourism and state pride in the case of Colorado so even though redesigning our state flags may not be our top priority it's something worth thinking about and besides who doesn't love an awesome flag and I think our states deserve better ones [Music] [Music] you