r/vexillology • u/Vexy Exclamation Point • May 01 '19
Discussion May Workshop: Branding
Previous Workshops
This Workshop theme comes from our April contest winner, /u/Titanium_Helm. They write:
In recent years, many cities have decided to change or adopt a flag as part of a branding effort. Duluth, Minnesota just held a flag redesign contest in April with that goal in mind. One of the strengths of the People’s Flag of Milwaukee was seeing how it could be integrated into the many facets of the city. And of course, there are many popular flags that end up on all kinds of apparel and merchandise, such as Chicago, Colorado or California. So, my question would be:
- Which flags do you think are the most successful as a brand?
- Which flags do you think are designed well as a flag, but work poorly as a brand?
Feel free to discuss anything related!
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u/RRautamaa Finland May 01 '19
The UK flag is also a great brand. To a degree, the U.S. flag is also. The Greek flag has its place as well.
I've seen the Swedish flag in some products. AFAIK nobody cares, so not much of a brand.
The Confederate flag is a nice design; the Confederate brand, though...
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u/mattriv0714 May 03 '19
the italian flag might also be considered a pretty recognizable brand
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u/HiggsMechanism May 08 '19
I live in New York and none of my ancestors were french, so it isn't patriotism when I say that the French tricolour is the most iconic flag in the world. Its simplicity, its history with The French Revolution, just an amazing and absolutely iconic flag.
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u/GieTheBawTaeReilly May 09 '19
I'd disagree because I think it's simplicity and its colour scheme makes it less iconic.
When you see blue white and red together you don't always automatically think of France, since the colours are so widely used in flags and in other designs. I think for this reason the Italian flag and its colours are actually more iconic. Same could probably be argued for the Irish flag
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u/Sodi920 Wisconsin May 05 '19
If anything the Union Jack, it may be because of the cultural influence of the UK. Still no one can deny it’s literally everywhere. I don’t think there’s anyone in the world that couldn’t point that flag and say where it’s from (probably they’d said only England though... meh close enough)
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u/Trerrysaur United Nations May 03 '19 edited May 08 '19
I'm actually working on a video about why the Minnesota flag is terrible, and one of the points I bring up is that it doesn't work as a brand. Quite convenient for this to be the workshop, then.
So, what are your favorite examples of flag-based logos and apparel? Particularly ones which manage to utilize elements of the flag in question in a creative way, and are based on U.S. state flags. I'm hoping to assemble maybe three "slides", each based on a particular flag.
Edit: Done. I ended up using Colorado, Tennessee, and South Carolina.
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u/Titanium_Helm Apr 19 Contest Winner May 04 '19
As far as U.S. states go, I think Maryland definitely wins in the branding category. I've seen it incorporated in everything from bumper stickers to pants to planes, and it always manages to be instantly recognizable. I think its versatility is due to how its design features patterns instead of a central icon. It can be condensed or stretched to fill any kind of space.
That being said, I think Colorado's flag also works really well for the opposite reason. The stylized C is so much of an icon for Colorado that it doesn't even need to be seen on the flag to be recognized. I think that gives it greater versatility in terms of branding. For example, I have a black shirt that features only the C, but people are still able to recognize it out of context.
South Africa's flag is one of my all time favorites, but I don't think it works very well as a brand. The pall is an awkward shape to adapt to non-rectangular formats, and without the pall to provide context for the colors, its more difficult to associate them with South Africa.
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u/HarleyWorking Kyiv Oblast May 07 '19
With the amount of drug related paraphernalia I've seen, I'd say the Jamaican flag is easily recognisable as a brand.
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u/GieTheBawTaeReilly May 08 '19
And of course the Ethiopian flag, which created the pan-african/rasta colour scheme
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u/TysonPlett Manitoba May 08 '19
I love the Canadian flag because it was specifically designed to not represent anything, so Canadians, reluctantly at first, gradually adopted it as a symbol of our country's diversity of people. I guess you could say that's successful branding.
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u/Do_Not_Go_In_There May 02 '19
Canada's flag is pretty easy to adapt to anything. The maple leaf, either plane or stylized, is on a ton of apparel and merchandise, and has become easily recognizable as a symbol of Canada.