The video itself is really good. I didn’t agree with everything he said (the Triple Union, while not good, is still just so obviously way better than putting the Aboriginal flag in the canton), but certainly with most of it. The Great Southern Flag is a noble effort, but it just feels too…fidgety…to me. Too much going on. Too many small pieces. The use of 5 separate colours, the very small kangaroo, 3 different kinds of stars (5-pointed Epsilon star, four 8-pointed main Southern Cross stars, and the 7-pointed Federation Star), and the solid cross connecting the stars.
Honestly, I genuinely like the Golden Wattle. I like that it keeps the Federation Star within the negative space. I think wattles are a great symbol that we should reach for more often.
The video briefly touched on the shades of colours (in the blue of the Unity Flag), but didn’t touch on what I think makes them a significant design feature for Australian flags to play with. If you do a tour of Parliament House, there’s a good chance the tour guide will explain why the two chambers are the colours they are. Red for the Senate, after the UK’s House of Lords, and green for the House of Representatives/Commons. But unlike the very vibrant shades Westminster uses, Australia’s colours are chosen to suggest natural earthy tones of the outback. The green of a eucalyptus, and the ochre red of the dirt. I don’t know if that’s a design choice our flag should copy or not. But it’s worth thinking about.
Green and blue are pretty close to each other on the color spectrum, and they blend together at a distance. I would simplify and remove either the land or the water. They won’t blend into each other, and you still have more than enough symbolism.
The stoke on the wine glass is super smart. I like it. But I agree with the other commenter who recommended unifying the semi circle fill sizes. It simplifies the layout.
I would also pump up the stroke on the wine glass so that is reads a bit better from a distance. Also, that stroke is clever, so play that element up.
Yeah, there might be a way to make it work by fiddling with color values. Green next to blue can be tough, but it’s not impossible. The trick will be finding a green and blue that are also complimentary and don’t create a pallet that looks like a McDonald’s ball pit.
If you’re new to color theory, do a Google search for color theory / color pallet tools. There are a lot of good ones out there. Adobe has a nice free one.
You might also be able to represent land another way. Like using a shape or illustration instead or color.
That said, as someone who’s been doing this for few decades now and directs some design teams, my advice is to keep symbolism to like 2 or 3 things. One you go over that, it can really be easy to get messy harder to pull off. Just my 2¢.
That said, I like where you’re going with this. Will this be officially adopted by the area?
keep symbolism to like 2 or 3 things. One you go over that, it can really be easy to get messy harder to pull off.
Point taken.
Will this be officially adopted by the area?
I certainly intend to try and get it in front of the council, but they weren’t actively looking to get a flag. Folks around here can be hesitant to change, so I’m not getting my hopes up.
I think it’s more about where you draw the line between red and brown, which is individual and cultural. Apparently, my view on this might be a bit controversial. I first saw the old Georgian flag as a small child that did not know fancy words like “burgundy” and “maroon”. It seemed brown to me, and so it has remained in my mind, even if it would be more exact to describe it as some nuance brownish shade of red, or reddish shade of brown.
You can also have a look at the Wikipedia page with shades of brown, and I’m sure you will find that people can be way crazier than me when it comes to describing things as brown. Like, how can wheat, bone, moles or black olives be brown?
It all depends on your color model. If you would use CMYK instead you would see that burgundy is a combination of magenta, yellow and black, just as brown is.
“The wine-red colour symbolised the good times of the past as well as the future, whilst the black represented Russian rule, and the white represented hope for peace”
vexillology
Hot
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.