Vexillology is the sister discipline to heraldry, both using much the same dialect. And both being primarily martial in application. Flags help you identify your troops so that you kill the other guys instead. Flags in the civil realm are mostly just decoration.
True about subnationals, for the most part, but yeah, if it looks like a business card made by someone who too cheap to hire a proper designer, it still deserves mockery.
Maryland is an interesting case in which breaking the guideline of simplicity actually works – but that’s because you begin with the individually heraldically straightforward Calvert and Crossland arms and the arrangement is bold and distinctive without creating tryhard confusion. Once you learn the Maryland flag, that stays learned, and if it means that artistically untalented second graders can’t draw it from memory, so be it.
Mind you, you can be complying with all the guidelines and still wind up with useless things like the arms of some of the European “royal” lineages where they compensated for the fact they no longer reigned over jack (or only over a rump of a once middling-mighty realm), by slapping on every blazon of every place that every ancestor ever ruled to the point nobody can figure what it is.
I’d say it’s a bit more than second graders who would have trouble drawing it from memory. What you get with the Maryland flag is one that is easy to recognize, but hard to remember the specifics.
What I’d propose is making it where the specifics aren’t essential. As long as you have a diagonal yellow/black checkers and red crosses on a white background, it should be sufficient to say it’s a Maryland flag, even if there are specific standards for the the Maryland flag .
There’s precedent with the American flag. The parts that are actually required are not all that specific, even though there is one model we consider the official flag–(save for the colors, which are only defined on cloth flags).
(Note that the above link is to a YouTube video.)
I like the Maryland flag - probably in my Top Five State Flags. Very busy, yes, and I’m sure I couldn’t draw it from memory, but it’s distinctive, heraldically interesting and has a relevant historical link to the state, and the colors go well together IMHO.
Looking at the thumbnail sized picture of the flag here: Flag of Maryland - Wikipedia, I can barely even see what the Maryland flag is, other than “yellow/black/red camouflage pattern” If I squint my eyes at it, the entire flag just completely disappears into the background noise, while the US flag (admittedly larger in size) flying next to it is still pretty distinctive. Not a really great property for a flag.
I disagree. Even at that distance, and even squinting, it’s instantly recognizable to me.
I’m another one who really likes and appreciates the MD state flag. One of the most distinctive in the country, and quite attractive besides.
No, I’ve never lived there. My state has a boring blue flag with the state seal. I’m just jealous.
I’ve always assumed that the so-called rule about “a school child should be able to draw it” was invented by the French vexillologists.
As I put it in another vexillology thread some years ago, the real “best practice” about ease of design recognition really would be not so much “a child can draw it from memory” as “a reasonably intelligent child can tell you what it generally looks like you can tell what they mean”.
Works for me.
On the other hand, someone once described the Maryland flag as looking like there’d been an explosion in a paint factory.
I like to think of it as Lord Baltimore having a migraine
Yeah, a kid would have issues drawing a bear but the CA flag is damn good.
Thats better.
Youtube;
DOES YOUR FLAG FAIL? Grey Grades The State Flags!
But I disagree, CA flag is great, since it is historical.
This cite says CA works-
Yeah, but, use the correct tincture/metal (color) names. Please fail to annoy the nerds.
Or/Sable/Gules/Argent.
*Quarterly, 1st and 4th, paly of six Or and Sable a bend counterchanged 2nd and 3rd, quarterly argent and gules, a cross bottony counterchanged.
(Yeah, I was an SCA Herald for a bit)
Yeesh, I had that done once and couldn’t sit down for a week.
TBF, I was thinking about little kids using their crayon box to color them.
And we’re back to Virginia!
Any best-state-flags list that doesn’t at least mention Ohio is, by definition, wrong.
There’s a good ointment for that now.
I can certainly see some home-based pride there.
But within any display of state flags that simply looks like patriotic bunting. I would not even recognize it as a flag much less Ohio’s flag if I saw it mixed in with a bunch of the other states’ efforts.
I’d like it even if I weren’t an Ohioan. It’s a unique design and stands out well despite its all-American colors, I’d say.