Why city flags may be the worst-designed thing you've never noticed | Roman Mars

Why HN readers recommended it

The canonical reference on flag and logo design principles, cited in branding and design threads.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel

TED

Topic

flag design

Format

talk

Level

general

HN recommenders in dataset

3

HN mentions in dataset

6

Recommendation years in dataset

2017–2023

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

• This is painful to see. It looks like a shopping mall or apartment building logo, compared to other states with proper flags. And it goes without saying, on this topic, one must watch the short talk on state and country flags: [VIDEO]

• > kids in first year of school should know how to draw flag from memory Roman Mars taught me that – well Ted Kaye, but Roman taught me in his seminal TED talk [1]. [1] [VIDEO]

• Their flag is terrible: [LINK] 99% Invisible does a great episode on what makes a good flag, and why cities like Chicago, DC and Amsterdam have iconic, memorable flags: [VIDEO] [LINK]