So Wikipedia tells me that when French politicians attend photo ops with a national flag standing in the background, that flag will often have a white stripe that’s much narrower than the blue and red ones. The reason is that the way standing flags hang down, rolled up into themselves, means the middle stripe gets overemphasised, risking that it would end up the only one visible. So conversely, making that stripe very narrow ensures that they all appear, visually, as equally wide.
Is this common practice in vexillology? Do other national flags with more complex graphic designs than three vertical stripes, such as the US or UK flags, also have commonly-used distorted versions that ensure that a standing flag would appear as you’d expect it to?
I have seen footage of unpacking a press conference where some podium American flags which were nicely draped seen to have been taped or sown together so that they didn’t unfurl, and undo all of someone’s good work.
Set designers and press conference pros probably have some basic tricks for arraying their own flag so it looks best for TV.