Re: Conlang Flag Design

I tried to post this yesterday, but had run out of posts.

As for site updates, I'm making a note of new flags, but I don't
intend to upload changes until this evening. Until then, you can
consider me to be having the day off :-)

http://web.netyp.com/member/dragon/temp/conlangflag.htm

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takatunu wrote:

> I had an idea a while ago and oddly, the colours were the same!
> It was kinda related to a "pearl".
> http://conlang.free.fr/conlangflag.jpg
[takatunu also emailed this to me, so I uploaded it.]

Thanks ... but I wish people wouldn't use bl8dy JPEGs! :-) :-)

It's a case of "right tool for the job". JPEG is a great format for
photographs (which is what it's intended for), but it's useless for
flags and diagrams. With a nice clean PNG, if it turns out later that
there's a demand for (e.g.) changing one of the colours, then a quick
click of a floodfill tool will set you right. If you use a lossy
format such as JPEG, however, with those annoying fuzzy edges, you've
got quite a lot of work to make even a straightforward modification to
a design. GIF is also infinitely more suitable than JPEG, though not
as good as PNG (I believe that the final version of the flag should be
saved in GIF format: the one and only problem with PNG is that some
older browsers can't view it).

Also, I don't know what graphics package you're using, but those red
and blue "splotches" in the purple are not a good look. Gives the
appearance that the cloth has been out in the rain too much and the
ink's run. :-)

David Peterson wrote:

> Looks like there are advocates of both.   Personally, I'm on the fence
> with the rays.   Should they be entered as two separate flags, or would
> that produce a Woodrow Wilson effect?
I intensely dislike the rays, so I believe there should be a no-rays
version available no matter what. The ray-less version is more like a
real sun, and practically transports me into the conworld. The version
with rays transports me into a paper cut-out, which is not as nice.

If we use Paul's voting method (which I'm happy with), then there's no
moral reason not to have two or three versions of the same flag.
However, that's no excuse to be excessive. There should be at most a
small number of variations on a design.

> [Note: We haven't discussed it yet,
> but what if we changed the black color?
I kicked myself when I forgot to reply to this bit earlier: my answer
is a resounding "no" - if it wasn't black, it wouldn't look like a
silhouette, and besides, I like the idea of conlanging's rise from the
blackness of obscurity. :-)

Ben Poplawski wrote:

> I'd also like to add that I dislike the purple, especially that
> prevalent pale purple. I prefer more simple, primary colors.
The red-versus-purple debate was several days ago: sorry you missed it
:-) However, in response to your message, earlier today I darkened the
purple just a little bit.

Adrian.

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