# How to design a flag

URL: https://madeupmerch.jackmccarthy020.workers.dev/how-to/design-a-flag/
Updated: 2026-10-23

Good flags follow five old rules. Then there's the part nobody mentions: what happens to the edge that goes on the pole.

**Short answer:** Use two or three colours, one simple symbol at most, and no words, and check it doesn't copy a real country's flag. If a kid could draw it from memory after seeing it once, it works.

## The five rules

Flag designers have boiled it down to five principles, from the North American Vexillological Association's booklet Good Flag, Bad Flag:

- **Keep it simple.** A kid should be able to draw it from memory.
- **Use meaningful symbolism.** One symbol that stands for something.
- **Use two or three basic colours.** They have to contrast.
- **No lettering or seals.** If you have to write it, the flag has failed.
- **Be distinctive, or be related.** Don't copy another flag, unless you mean to.

## Where flags lose points

[Flag Foundry](https://madeupmerch.jackmccarthy020.workers.dev/flag/) has a built-in critic that scores every design against those rules, the same score in your browser and on the server. The big deductions show you what matters:

- **One colour**: 45 points off. "That's not a flag, that's a bedsheet."
- **Letters on the flag**: 25 points off.
- **Every colour past three**: 12 points off each.
- **A symbol the same colour as the field behind it**: 30 points off. The critic says it's in witness protection.
- **Colours that blur together** where they touch. "From fifty meters those colors are the same color."
- **Looking like a real country's flag.** It checks your design against real national flags: 18 points off for a copy, 9 for a near-copy with the symbol swapped.

## Start from a layout

Most national flags are one of a handful of layouts with a symbol on it. Starting from one is the quickest way to something that looks like it belongs on a pole: two stripes, three stripes, a centre band, a cross, a Nordic cross set toward the pole, a diagonal cross, quarters, a border, a canton (the corner box), a chevron from the pole side, or a diagonal band.

Then add one symbol at most: a star, sun, disc, moon, mountain peak, wave, tree, bird, gear, crown, anchor or a letter. The letter costs you points, but sometimes the joke is worth it.

## The printing gotchas

**The pole side disappears.** On an outdoor flag a strip along the pole edge is folded into the rod pocket, a few inches wide on the big flags. Nothing important should sit right at that edge. Flag Foundry fills the hidden strip with the edge colours so nothing gets swallowed.

**The back is a mirror.** Outdoor flags are printed on both sides, and the back is mirrored so the layout stays at the pole from both directions. Symbols are mirrored too, so a bird faces the pole on both sides. The one exception is a letter: Flag Foundry flips it back so it never reads backward.

**Garden flags hang differently.** A garden flag hangs from a sleeve across the top, so both sides read normally. It's also the only one that prints your nation's name, since a banner can carry words.

## Sizes

- Outdoor flag with a rod pocket: 3 x 5 ft, 2 x 3 ft, or 12 x 18 in.
- Wall flag with grommets, one side: 56 x 34.5 in.
- Garden flag: 12 x 17 in.

## Questions people ask

### Can I put my country's name on the flag?

Good flags don't, so Flag Foundry never prints the name on the flag itself. It shows on the site and on the founding papers, and it prints on the garden flag.

### Can I make a flag for a real country?

No. Flag Foundry only founds made-up nations and refuses real country names, so the Republic of Guinea Pigs works and the Republic of Chad doesn't.

### How many colours should a flag have?

Two or three, with strong contrast between any two that touch. One colour is a bedsheet; four or more and the critic starts taking points.

### Is the back of the flag a mirror image?

Yes. The whole design is mirrored so it stays at the pole when you look from the other side, symbol included. The only thing flipped back is a letter, so it never reads backward.

## Or just make one

- [Flag Foundry](https://madeupmerch.jackmccarthy020.workers.dev/flag/): Make up a country. Design its flag. Fly it.
- [The Bachelor(ette) Collection](https://madeupmerch.jackmccarthy020.workers.dev/crew/): One face on a whole table of merch. Everyone orders their own.