Conlang flag design; comments and proposals

<black Mercedes approaches with top speed, then suddenly brakes with
squeeking tires, and yours truly jumps out wildly> "Hooo, stop! Hang
on! Wait a minute! Stopstopstop...!!" <takes a deep breath, then
mumbles> "Okay, Steen, sit down quietly, relax and tell whatever you
had to say."

Very interesting thread. I've been a bit too busy lately playing
Relay Master and living a real life on the side, but obviously that
was not a good idea. ;) Well, if this whole Conlang Flag idea is
serious, then I surely would like to make some comments about it.

First of all, are the flags shown at
<http://web.netyp.com/member/dragon/temp/conlangflag.htm> all current
proposals? I haven't had the time yet to read through the whole
thread, but my impression was that there were more ideas ventilated
than I can actually see now. But well:

Regarding David Peterson's flags I must say that I terribly dislike
the huge black band at the bottom. After I first opened the page, it
took me three of four times of using the Refresh button before I
finally understood that the images were fully loaded after all. The
hill, in my opinion, is a much better idea. I quite like the
hieroglyph idea, but I'm not sure about the background colour.
Basically, I miss purple! ;) But if it should be blue after all, then
I definitely prefer the darker shade in #4. The sun looks best in the
version with sunbeams, although these flags remind me more of
pre-Columbian American flag than a Conlang flag.

Regarding Adrian's proposal: no winner IMNSHO. The backstory of #1 is
great, but I really don't like the two boomerangs (I didn't associate
it with a jester's hat; however, with some fantasy, you can also see
it as the steering device of a scooter half a second before the poor
child is his by a car). #2 looks too much like the flag of a country
or an international organisation. And we, on the other hand, are just
a tiny little village. ;))

Regarding Christian's proposal:
#1 is excellent. The only modification I would give you to consider
is making the purple colour darker and replacing the dark blue with
bordeaux red.

Regarding Barry's proposal:
Nice flag, but it looks too much like a country flag. And the tongue
is far too cartoonesque. The other proposals look too much like
country's flags as well IMO; although I find them quite nice,
especially the symbol in Shanth's flag.

---

But well, I won't let go of this subject without having submitted a
few proposals myself. There are six of them. What they all have in
common are the colours and the star. Now, I don't particularly like
symbolism, but if that's a requirement, here we go:

- The purple colour of course represents creativity; I like it in
particular, not only because I like the colour in itself but also
because it appears not often in flag designs. The gold colour
represents beauty.

- The star: is it really a star or rather a compass? Both
associations are functional. The star represents the "other worlds"
we are working on, and it may on its way also represent creativity
and/or idealism. I should add that, unlike the star in the Esperanto
flag, this star is distinctly unpolitical. If you prefer to see it as
a compass, thay can work as well. In that case it represents not only
the conlangers from all over the world, but also the worlds we are
creating.

<http://steen.free.fr/ib/flags/conlang1.png>

#1 is basically a variation of the Tocharian flag in IB. But I had
already made up this flag before I assigned it any meaning, and I
think it might work in our context.

<http://steen.free.fr/ib/flags/conlang2.png>
<http://steen.free.fr/ib/flags/conlang3.png>

#2 en #3: the same star and colours, but with text. "LINGUART" in #2
and "CONLANG" in #3. Now I'm not saying these are the only possible
texts. But somehow I feel that the load of the flag is better
conveyed by a word than with a symbol. A device, like "Create a
language" wouldn't be bad either.

<http://steen.free.fr/ib/flags/conlang4.png>

#4: the star with a simplified Babel tower. Why hasn't anybody
thought of that?

#5: I wanted to make a fifth option too, but I didn't have the time.
Anyway, a short description will do. It would be the same as #4, but
with a golden or bright blue circle instead of a Babel tower. In this
case, I don't want to represent the sun, but the world(s) instead.
After all, in most cases conlanging is accompanied by world creation.


Jan

=====
"If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping in a closed
room with a mosquito."

Relay 10/R - schedule: <http://steen.free.fr/relay10/schedule.html>
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