Good morning Interweb! Let's worldbuild.
Flags
Flags are like opinions. Everyone has one most are terrible. Venice or Italy, Prince Edward Island, Canada
Perez in Basque Countrry
Bartlesville, Oklahoma
Brown County, Nebraska
And literally all of Liberia.
If you think these are bad, trust me it used to be much worse
Until 2017 this was the flag of Pocatello, Idaho.
Yes, that is a trademark symbol.
Yes, that is a copyright disclaimer.
And yes that flag may well have been the worst thing ever designed by humans.
That or the 2016 MacBook Pro
Now in 2006, NAVA, the North American Vexillological Association
Published good flag, bad flag.
Setting out their five basic principles of flag design.
Namely, keep it simple, use meaninful symbolism, use 2 to 3 basic colors, no lettering or seals and be distinctive or be related.
These guidelines despite being endorsed by flag nerds the world over are, well basic?
And it's a shame that we rarely talk about NAVA's other much more detailed and comprehensible report on flags designs
So let's all take a second to talk about that report and a more nuanced approach to flag building.
But first, some terminology.
Front a.k.a obverse
Back a.k.a reverse
Ratio
Hoist
Fly
Canton
And device or charge.
Flags tends to be rectangular with ratios between 1 to 1.5 and 1 to 2
That's said, other flag-like forms do exist.
Most notably, flag of Nepal.
The double pennant works here because the shape invokes the Himalayan mountains
So only deviate from rectangles if there's a symbolic reason to do so and be aware of cost and maintenance.
For demo purpose, I'm gonna go with a 16 to 9 rectangle for my channel's flag
Because that's the aspect ratio of YouTube videos.
Choose symbolically significant colors and apply them thoughtfully with contrast in mind.
Light on dark?
Dark on light?
And light separating dark
In general, 2 to 3 colors are advised, but you can easily make 4, 5 and even 6 colors work
If and only if you think symbolically and in terms of contrast.
Anymore and you're probably just cramming.
Case and point, this dumpsterfire, which is less a flag and more of the love child between a barcode and some 80s wallpaper.
On the other end of the scale, same color flags are usually frowned upon.
But throw in a unique shape and they could work.
That's said, I've decided to go with my 3 primary videos colors.
Red, white and black.
And despite there're being numbers of really cool ways to divide up a flag, I went with this.
Black symbolizing space and white symbolizing planet and the blank canvas
If a flag requires a device, make it a single graphical representation of something symbolic
and place it in the center of the flag or in the Canton.
These two areas are prime flag real estate,
as they are visible when flying in the wind or hanging limp.
Most flags are dyed through and through, meaning the reverse is a mirror image of the obverse.
Thus, any device should either have vertical symmetry
or be designed in such a way, that it's mirror image is still recognizable and looks good
You could do a Paraguay and have two different designs, front and back.
But this increases the cost of the flag and undermines recognition.
Also, if your device has directionality, consider pointing it towards the flagpole.
This follows out of heraldry, where right facing animals are seen as a symbol of cowardice.
Oh, and Virginia? No seals. Period.
They're designed to be viewed close up, not at a distance.
Logos on the other hand could work well, if they are super basic and do not contain text.
'Cause flags should never feature plain text, Wisconsin.
Text is unreadable, when the flag is fluttering in the wind, at a distance and will be reversed on the reverse.
Want to use text? Do a Colorado and make it a graphical component rather than just plain text.
Same goes for numbers.
For my flag I went with a red stylized star and a half moon and placed it in the center of my flag.
Interesting sidenote: This flag can be entirely constructed using a straight edge, a compass and by folding fabric
You totally don't have to impose this kind of restraint on yourself,
but I like to know, that my flags could have been created back in pre-illustrator times
Once you have completed a flag, run it through a simulation to see, if the design works well in real-life conditions
See, if an imperfect, free hand drawing of it can still be easily identified.
Check to see if the design is identiable at lapel pin size
And check to see if your flag works in grayscale.
Pass all these criteria and chances are you have a good flag.
Now, if you want to design multiple flags, like state flags for example,
Prioritize local distinctiveness over higher level groupings.
Take the japanese prefectural flags,
a.k.a. the Helvetica of vexillology
so objectively brilliant, that it's become kinda trendy to hate them.
They are clearly part of the same familiy, yet each are unique.
Additionally their devices are inspired by calligraphy and geography, making them inclusive,
Not that that's a huge factor in japan, but it's a good takehome:
Flags need to be inclusive.
Contrast this with the australian stateflags.
Homogenous and eurocentric.
Sorry Australia, that was mean.
But, in my defence, I didn't bring up Adeleide, that would have been really mean.
Good morning interweb, follow-up from the albedo video.
Spreadsheets:
I am not going to allow online editing access to my spreadsheets,
because someone is gonna get in there and wreck them for everyone.
So, if I make a video with a spreadsheet and you want that spreadsheet,
go to that videos dooblydoo, hit the link, a spreadsheet will open, go to "file" - "download as" and safe them locally to your computer.
I think that's probably the safest way of doing this, so, just to let you know, that's gonna happen.
Temperature:
Another great way of calculating the temperature of a planet, if you don't want to do the crazy maths,
Is to use a simulator like universe sandbox or space engine.
Now, I don't know why I didn't mention this in the last video, I really should have,
Just know, simulators are an option and they're really good.
And finally, barring some sort of crazy christmas miracle, this is gonna be the last video before christmas,
So I just wanna take this opportunity to wish all of Artifexia a very merry christmas, happy holidays and a happy new year.
I hope 2017 was a good year for you guys and I hope 2018 wil be even better.
So, as always, thank you so much for watching and until next year, Edgar out.