Difference between revisions of "3250: Flag Design"
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| − | This comic is a parody of normal flag designs. For example, animals are commonly used on flags, and stars are also occasionally on flags. However regular flags don't have themselves on it, and don't have tributes or references to science.{{citation needed}} | + | This comic is a parody of normal flag designs. For example, animals are commonly used on flags, and stars are also occasionally on flags. However regular flags don't have themselves on it, and don't have tributes or references to science.{{citation needed}} It is designed similarly to the xkcdphone series, with a number of improbable features indicated with labels. |
==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
Revision as of 22:24, 25 May 2026
| Flag Design |
 Title text: Every place has a local cryptid; more places need a local Pictish Beast, a creature in historical art that's drawn so weirdly that no one can tell what animal it's supposed to be. |
Explanation
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This is one of 44 incomplete explanations: This page was created by a recursive flag. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page! |
This comic is a parody of normal flag designs. For example, animals are commonly used on flags, and stars are also occasionally on flags. However regular flags don't have themselves on it, and don't have tributes or references to science.[citation needed] It is designed similarly to the xkcdphone series, with a number of improbable features indicated with labels.
Transcript
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This is one of 38 incomplete transcripts: Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page! |
[A flag with many things on it.]
I think our flag design committee really knocked it out of the park
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Could there possibly be a reference to New Zealand’s laser kiwi flag? 2A02:6B6F:E226:B00:2D7E:D360:EEA6:2104 22:01, 25 May 2026 (UTC)
Oooh, I like a good Flag comic. Not been one for a while, and I used to use one of them as my xkcd fora avatar. 81.179.199.253 22:09, 25 May 2026 (UTC)
what is that animal Mathmaster (talk) 22:22, 25 May 2026 (UTC)
The inner flag doesn't have its own inner flag... AoPS is superior (talk) 22:43, 25 May 2026 (UTC)
- Which suggests to me is that this flag is of one nation/entity that incorporates the national flag of another nation (often done... see Hawaii's flag). It only says "National flag" (which, as it happens, has many identical features, just not all), rather than "this' nation's national flag", so it needn's necessarily be "The People's Republic of Drosteland" being totally self-referential through infinite recursion. 81.179.199.253 23:38, 25 May 2026 (UTC)
- Was I the only one who was disappointed that the inner flag doesn’t have different strips torn off than the outer flag? Dúthomhas (talk) 16:25, 26 May 2026 (UTC)
- It's just someone who took the second rule of model train layouts seriously. --2001:A62:5C9:AC01:C7BE:4061:F033:C5C7 18:38, 26 May 2026 (UTC)
Isn't the "tribute to topology" a half-turn to make the flag one-sided (Möbius strip)? 130.216.50.126 00:54, 26 May 2026 (UTC)
Wifi transmitter? it looks liek the contactless icon for cards so i was thinking it'd at least work in that NFC-adjacent way, which needs no power source. 193.61.208.1 00:56, 26 May 2026 (UTC)
The state flags of Costa Rica, Colombia, and Haiti, and the national flags of El Salvador and Ecuador have themselves on the flag, via the state seals 104.58.95.236 01:27, 26 May 2026 (UTC)
- Also Bolivia, Dominican Republic, and Venezuela Admiral Memo (talk)
I think the customize option doesn't refer to customizing the flag itself, but customizing privacy options for the data it collects. It is similar to the options shown on a website when it asks about using cookies. An Architect (talk) 02:24, 26 May 2026 (UTC)
Is 'beige background' a reference to the 'color of the universe' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_latte ? That struck me especially given the mention of stars 202.80.150.54 02:56, 26 May 2026 (UTC)
Why is one of the little tear off tabs missing the full phone number? 2401:D005:D402:7A00:A657:9BBB:CD:EF55 03:57, 26 May 2026 (UTC)
- It's a citizenship test - if you take that one, we don't want you. 82.13.184.33 15:32, 26 May 2026 (UTC)
"Customize" does not mean "changing the colour/design of the flag". It is one of the two most common buttons in GDPR (supposedly-) compliant cookie warnings, which allows you to access a very long list of uses to manually give consent to, as well as a link to access a very long list of data vendors to also tweak who you do not mind getting your data. --94.73.49.13
Could the rounded corners be a reference to this? https://www.androidpolice.com/2012/05/04/the-samsung-galaxy-s-iii-the-first-smartphone-designed-entirely-by-lawyers/
Can anyone add an explaination of "Every place has a local cryptid"? --85.159.196.177 10:49, 26 May 2026 (UTC)
- Well it's something of an exaggeration, but certainly many places do have a cryptid. If you allow mythological/folkloric beasts that might once have been considered cryptids (albeit the word itself might not have been coined), then there are many more, many of which do appear on flags. Randall is suggesting that they're so commonplace that they're less interesting than real animals that we can't identify the representations of. Perhaps even to the extent of advocating that such cases should be deliberately created. 82.13.184.33 15:11, 26 May 2026 (UTC)
The flag of Ukraine has its own in there infinite times in infinite locations and sizes along the centre line 115.70.50.83 (talk) 10:51, 26 May 2026 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
Perhaps the Chromaticity Diagram is meant to render the flag impossible to make. Any pigment used to produce the flag will occupy a point on the diagram, and only points within a polygon defined by those pigments' vertexes could be accurately reproduced by mixing. So the edges would be approximations of the representative colors, making the diagram not "true." 2600:387:c:6e14::1 (talk) 14:48, 26 May 2026 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
"Text on flags is considered bad" - weeeell.... Flags with text are not particularly usual in the "pure symbology" variation of vexilology, given that easy (and potentially illiterate) recognition/reproduction is one thing for which flags were developed (as opposed to, for example, modern day placards with a 'message' of some kind, decorated/illustrated or otherwise). But if the flag contains a full 'coat of arms' in its design then it likely (along with the heraldic 'supporters') has the "motto ribbon" with text set upon it, at its most thorough rendering. The four trigrams on the S. Korean flag might be considered 'text' to some, and there are other flags of the region that contain local glyphs. A number of Islamic country flags have actual arabic text featured on them (yes, to some, such a flag might be considered "bad", but for different reasons). The "Don't step on me" snake-flag also (and, again, some might consider its use bad, but only because they consider its users to typically be 'bad', politically-speaking, and it's getting to be more a 'banner' than a flag, anyway). I don't expect that original bald statement to last much longer, but I'm not sure how much I could do to improve it. Making the flag (apparently) interactive seems to be the big issue, IMO, adding label and button widgets (dynamic or otherwise) and for GDPR-like purposes is the thing. Text, or any kind of more complex glyph, probably should be avoided in a properly designed symbolic flag, but that doesn't mean that one cannot have a flag with (say) "15th <MY TOWN> Cub Scouts" written around/beneath the scouting symbol as a parading banner, alongside the Union Flag which lacks text but has (if anything) stricter positioning of its various more simple coloured swathes and field in order to be correct (and not perhaps even upside-down). 82.132.231.190 16:37, 26 May 2026 (UTC)
The island looks like Guernsey/ 86.146.156.232 07:43, 27 May 2026 (UTC)
I dare say the "generic island" concept refers to the European currency "Euro". When the bills were designed, there were supposed to be pictures of European bridges on them, but the commitee could not agree on which specific bridges to choose (the discussion probably going somewhat like "But your Zapatonian bridges are ugly, let's take our famous "Bridge of the 30th February!"). In the end, they put generic drawings of fictitious bridges on them. Because, you know, that's how emotional bonding works. --2A02:8108:4C96:9700:14A2:B1A0:4439:D1 08:09, 27 May 2026 (UTC)
- Not quite true. They were always meant to be generic representations of architectural styles* - there was no disagreement over real bridges to be included. The designer was later found to have based the winning designs on actual bridges, so these were then amended to 'genericise' them.
- (* It is true that this theme was chosen to avoid potentially contentious things like historical figures which had typically appeared on pre-euro banknotes.) 82.13.184.33 08:39, 27 May 2026 (UTC)
This is in stark contrast with the design here, where the flag might get more and more tattered with time by design.Fringing a flag can actually increase its resistance to wind damage (though making it out of tearable material probably isn't going to help). 82.13.184.33 08:43, 27 May 2026 (UTC)
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