Friday, February 10, 2012

Flag Friday: The Beginning of the End




Flag Friday is a periodic discussion of the world's national flags; the project is explained, but not very well indexed, here.

These discussions are about graphic design, and perhaps about nationalism and national symbolism in general. They should not be taken as critical of the countries, ideals, cultures, or people that the flags represent.



Well!

That certainly was an exciting two years!  From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, we have followed in the footsteps of pioneer Kiwi flag philosopher Josh Parsons, and taken a good hard look at the world of flags, and the flags of the world.

Looking back now, I can see that my favorite flags (the ones I gave A+'s) are those of Canada, Israel, and Sweden.  I can live with that. Parson's favorite is Gambia.  My least favorite is that of the Central African Republic, while Parson splits his lowest mark between Brazil and Belarus.

Now, over the course of the project, I developed something of a reputation for being a big softy.  There was a lot of finger-pointing, people saying that Michael5000 gave out good grades like candy, whereas Parsons was, well, parsimonious with his praise.  True?  Or myth?  Well, let's look at the numbers!  It turns out that we actually gave the exact same grade no fewer than 21 times!  And there were a whopping 39 flags that Parsons liked better than I did!  So that ought to shut up the haters.

There were 122 flags that I liked better than Parsons did.  I like flags.

Differences of Opinion

The six flags that Michael5000 most favored, relative to Josh Parson's opinion.

1. Brazil (A / D-)
2. Portugal (A / D)
3. Belarus (A- / D-)
4. Kazakhstan (A / D+)
5. Bhutan (A / D+)
6. Sri Lanka (A- / D)

The six flags that Josh Parsons most favored, relative to Michael5000's opinion.

1. Dominican Republic (B / D)
2. Switzerland (A / C+)
3. Cuba (A / B-)
4. Micronesia (A- / B-)
5. Somalia (A / B)
6. Central African Republic (C- / D-)

Is it really all over?

"To my mind," says IAT(fL&TM5K) reader Unwise Owl, "a fitting conclusion would be the flags facing off in a great big elimination tournament in the finest M5K tradition."  And DAMN that's a difficult argument to refute, isn't it!  Especially with March coming on.

So, if the flags were going to face off in a great big elimination tournament in the finest M5K tradition...  if that were going to start on, say, Friday, February 24th...  and continue on a series of encore Flag Fridays through the mad, mad month of March...  then the logical thing would probably be to seed the tournament with the top 32 flags as ranked by the composite score of Parsons and 5000, right?  Counting only the flags that have been in existence long enough, and with enough stability, so that Parsons and 5000 were critiquing the same flag, right?

Right?

YES!!!

So, here they are!

1. Israel (5000 A+ / Parsons A)
2. Pakistan (A / A)
3. Japan (A / A)
4. Gambia (A- / A+)
5. Canada (A+ / A-)
6. Finland (A / B+)
7. Turkey (B+ / A)
8. North Korea (A- / A-)
9. Austria (A / B+)
10. Iceland (A / B+)
11. Denmark (A / B)
12. Norway (A / B)
13. Sweden (A+ / B-)
14. Somalia (B / A)
15. South Africa (B / A)
16. Vietnam (B / A)
17. Namibia (A- / B+)
18. Greece (A / B)
19. Netherlands (A / B)
20. Sierra Leone (A / B)
21. United Kingdom (A / B)
22. Botswana (B+ / B+)
23. Slovakia (B+ / B+)
24. China (A- / B)
25. Mauritania (A- / B)
26. Hungary (A / B-)
27. Laos (A- / B)
28. Suriname (A- / B)

BUT OH NO THERE ARE 15 FLAGS TIED FOR 29TH!!!!

WE WILL HAVE TO HAVE A PLAY-IN!!!


Choose up to four of the following flags to occupy the bottom four seeds of the main tournament.  One vote per person per flag.

Maldives


Cuba


Chile


France


Ireland


Italy


Nigeria


Romania


Solomon Islands


Tunisia


Albania


Angola


Barbados


Estonia


Ukraine



So again: vote for up to four of these flags to join the final tourney as seeds 29 through 32.  One vote per flag per person!  Polls close Friday, February 17.

20 comments:

Michael5000 said...

My own picks are Maldives, Albania, Ireland, and of course Estonia.

lamanyana said...

Cuba
Ukraine
Barbados
Albania

Elizabeth said...

Estonia
Ireland
France (bien sur! they probably would deny my visa application if I didn't vote for this flag)
Tunisia

DENNIS BOLT said...

Cuba (nice variant on stars/stripes)
France (So Austria and Holland get in ahead of the classic tricolor!??)
Albania (that eagle rocks)
Barbados (great colors and symbol)

My write-in vote would be USA, even with clown pants!

Morgan said...

No Kazakhstan, because Parsons doesn't have good taste in flags :( That would have been my vote for first place overall.

As it stands:
1. Estonia
2. Albania
3. Barbados
4. Nigeria

mrs.5000 said...

Yeah, very generous of you to give Parsons' opinions equal weight, since it keeps some of your grade-A flags out of the running.

My picks here are:
Cuba
Ireland
Estonia
and, um, Maldives!

Chuckdaddy said...

Cuba, tunisia, Albania, Angola

PB said...

Albania - love the double eagle
Estonia - a dashing tricolor
France - strong and traditional
Cuba - just the right amount of flare

dhkendall said...

Estonia and Ukraine - surprised myself that I didn't pick four, but those two are the clear standouts.

And, really, it would be doing the blog a world of injustice if Estonia wasn't invited to play, the Estonian flag is so associated with it! (Since you like it so much, maybe fudge the numbers to get it in? ;) )

dhkendall said...

Oh, and Michael, somewhat unrelated question, but there's been (as far as I know) only one flag that changed since you did your writeup, and that's Libya. What is your take of the new Libyan flag (besides that "it's better than the old one", that's a no brainer as *anything* would have been better!)

pfly said...

Cuba
France
Albania
Ukraine

Jennifer said...

M5K MFN Estonia
Albania
Ukraine
Cuba

Michael5000 said...

dh: I like it! The internal proportions are good, and the white-on-black is nice. Too bad it's 2:1, but I'm sure it will be mostly de facto 3:2 anyway.

Cartophiliac said...

Cuba
France
Albania
Estonia

Thom said...

Cuba
Tunisia
Albania
Estonia

Dug said...

Cuba!
Tunisia!
Barbados
Maldives - not pretty but somewhat original

Ben said...

Cuba
Chile
Barbados
Estonia

Michael5000 said...

This comment went astray; it's from new reader Leah: "In my personal opinion, my top three favorite flags are America, Scotland, and Ireland. Unfortunately, the Scottish flag isn't on there. Oh well!! I also like the Angola flag."

So, that's a bump for Ireland and Angola for present purposes.

Michael5000 said...

Polls closed!

Voron X said...

I know I'm too late, but Cuba, Albania, Estonia, and Barbados are my choices, with honorable mention to Tunisia.