How to design better flags

HAVE YOU ever met a vexed vexillologist? This is someone who frets when flags are badly designed. Sadly, too many flags flutter to deceive: they are cluttered with imagery, a mess of colours and all too easily forgettable. Yet flags matter. Witness blue-and-yellow banner, which now serves as a potent symbol around the world (not to mention on this newspaper’s covers). A fine flag can be something that citizens feel proud to pledge allegiance to, as well as an excellent marketing tool. Canada’s red maple leaf, for example, has advertised the country on countless backpacks across the world.A bad banner has an obvious solution: change it. That is what several American states and cities have been doing, or at least contemplating. In March, Utah approved a new standard with a bold beehive to replace its fussier old flag. Maine in November whether it should switch from its current, over-intricate design to a different one with a plain pine tree and a blue star, a reinterpretation of an older banner, which is already proving popular. The design is not yet settled, so perhaps a flag with a lobster could pinch the honours at the last minute.