The Best & Worst Fictional Flags & Emblems | 2017

[Music] [Music] congratulations you've just overthrown the empire or won the Battle of the triad or consolidated the 24 warring houses however you've done it you have United a large part of Westeros middle-earth our earth the galaxy or whatever under a single banner but now you must decide what goes on that banner and that's where things get tricky flags emblems and insignia are in my opinion one of the coolest aspects of world building but for whatever reason they are often overlooked even within some of the most prominent franchises so in today's episode of incoming I like to give a quick overview of what makes a good flag or emblem what makes a crappy one and give me some examples of each from across science fiction and fantasy now there are a ton of resources available on how to design a good flag but generally you want to follow these basic guidelines keep it simple use only two or three well contrasting colors that would work equally well in black and white no lettering or overly complex seals be distinctive and perhaps most importantly use meaningful symbolism there are of course exceptions to every rule and some of the most famous and recognizable Flags break these guidelines but for the sake of simplicity these are the criteria I'm gonna be using just as an example let's take a look at a flag that we're all probably familiar with the emblem and flag of the United Nations is maybe one of the most deliberated designs in human history after all it is not representing a single nation or people but all of us the background is a field of blue generally thought of as the opposite of red the color of warm blood and incidentally the color of the sky which is the same for everyone on earth the center emblem is a projection of the earth as seen from the North Pole bisected by the Prime Meridian and the International Dateline there is a wreath consisting of twin branches of an olive tree generally used as another symbol of peace the main takeaway here should be just how much thought went into this design and how nothing is arbitrary the globe is positioned in such a way that no single country or landmass or even hemisphere is betrayed a superior or more prominent than any other this is exactly the sort of thing you want to take into account when you're coming up with symbolism on a planetary scale and it's also something that designs from science fiction mess up all the time all right so now on to the main event I've selected six emblems or flags that I think are some of the best designs in science fiction and fantasy I've also selected another six that I think are just awful and just for fun I have thrown in another few designs at the end that I think deserve a special mention or break one of the affirmation guidelines in the unique way these aren't in any particular order and of course these are just my personal opinions which means that they are a hundred percent undeniable facts because I and I alone sit atop a fortress of unassailable truth I'm going to start with the emblem of the Klingon Empire from Star Trek this is one of the most iconic and enduring designs in science fiction and I think for good reason it is bold aggressive and maybe even vaguely fascist evoking subtle comparisons to the Nazi swastika even if you know nothing about Klingon culture you can make some good guesses on what type of society they are based on this emblem alone there have been a few explanations in non-canon sources as to what the symbol represents the three blades laid before Kahless as a symbol of fealty the three most important qualities of a warrior honor duty sacrifice but with the Klingon Empire and other alien designs featured in this video I can cut them a lot of slack when it comes to symbolism the fact that different authors can interpret and rationalize different meetings from this symbol is good enough for me Star Trek in general I believe is the gold standard for emblem design the Klingon emblem is the most iconic but I think you could very easily make a case as to why the Federation Romulan Cardassian Dominion or Borg abalones deserve to be considered among the best designs in fiction even the more minor races like the Andorian 's trail of brain the Maquis I'll get wonderfully distinctive emblems when you compare these two similar designs that came out of the 1990s they are wildly successful all right moving on compared to Star Trek Star Wars is a bit more hit and miss when it comes to well designed flags and emblems I feel the first order earns a spot on my list however for their extremely prominent emblem we first saw in the force awakens now I don't think the first order necessarily has the best-designed emblem in Star Wars I think that honor my code awards Black Sun but I really appreciate how the first order incorporates details from its predecessors the Galactic Empire and the Galactic Republic while remaining a bit more visually distinctive than either the Empire and Republic both have very good designs individually but when viewed side-by-side I think it's all too easy to confuse the two and neither had very much personality look at both of them from 10 feet away and tell me which is which compared to Star Trek and Star Wars Ace Combat is hardly a blip on the radar but its flag designs are incredible and as with Star Trek almost anything from Ace Combat could be on this list the best the bunch however has to be the Federation of Asya there is really not too much to say about this flag as there has never been much of an explanation as to its symbolism but you can infer the various stars represent States or provinces and the design is just too elegant not to include this might be my favorite flag of all time now at the risk of repeating myself a bit here Warhammer both in its 41st millennium and fantasy and carnations is a franchise that really understands the value having cool symbols there's tons of them for the purpose of this list I'm choosing this symbol of the Imperium the Imperial Aquila because of how developed it is within the lore and how it forms the basis of Imperial iconography that spans across every other Imperial organization it's an extremely resilient and flexible symbol that always looks cool and intimidating no matter it's modified it can be simple detailed in black-and-white or color no matter what the Civil Works the other major organizations of the Imperium all deserve recognition as well for great designs the adapt is mechanicus the Inquisition the dozens of Space Marine chapters enough not even including the symbols of the chaos gods orc tribes cows Epps thus cabin from fantasy are definitely up there as well I really need to stop talking about Warhammer because when it comes to cool emblems there's really no end to them and we might be trapped here forever compared to science fiction I think fantasy is that something of a disadvantage when it comes to cool designs flags from our own history particularly those of the medieval period are usually pretty simple and typically the same things over and over a wolf a bear a castle a dragon whatever that's not to say distinctive designs don't exist they do they're just a little more rare with that in mind the sigil of house Baratheon Dragonstone from A Song of Ice and Fire is a fantastic design Game of Thrones of course features hundreds of said rules but this one appeals to me more than all the others because of its great symbolism in selecting this emblem Stannis Baratheon incorporated the fiery heart of the Lord of Light within the traditional stag of house Baratheon this design not only looks awesome and makes sense within the world of Game of Thrones but depending on your interpretation of Stannis is character there might be some more subtle and sinister undertones to this imagery and for the final entry in my good design list I'd like to take a look at weyland yutani from the Alien franchise as a corporation rather than a traditional state wailing - tani can get away with something that usually doesn't work too well on designs like this incorporating the initials of their name into their logo when you're more concerned with brand recognition rather than meaningful symbolism this is a good route to take there are plenty of examples of company logos featuring their initials but the integration between the two letters in weyland-yutani works incredibly well and I think it's a very successful design it also screams power and authority and unlike similar designs the letters aren't completely obvious and trick your brain a bit alright so now that I've given you some examples of emblems and flags that work let's move on to those that don't I'm gonna start with an example from one of my favorite science fiction franchises and it breaks my heart to include them on this list remember how the designers of the UN emblem went to such great lengths to ensure that no single country was given prominence over any other the system's Alliance for mass effect screws this up completely their emblem features only North America disregarding over 80 percent of the Earth's land mass and 90 percent of the total population in a single stroke while Cuba Iceland and countless other islands are dismissing entirely and that's just Earth humanity's other colonies are completely unrepresented here this is a mistake that pops up over and over in science fiction I love Mass Effect but I wish more attention had me given to designs like this of all the major races I think the Alliance was the only one given an emblem and it's not very good I have seen a variation of the symbol that replaces earth or three stars that's an improvement but it still does kind of bland Mass Effect deserves better next up we have the Alliance for Firefly there have been a couple variations of their flag design over the course of the series and then the movie so I'll touch briefly on each one now the first we saw was a combination of the US and Chinese flag which kind of makes sense when you consider the history in origins of the Alliance the problem is combining the symbolism of two different flags tends to ruin the meaning behind both creating a mishmash of ideas instead that doesn't quite work also it tends to invite unwanted symbolism in this case is the United States meant to be absorbing China or has China deface of America at some point this flag was replaced in something even worse unfortunately there aren't too many high-resolution examples of it so please excuse the quality here this is maybe my most hated design it breaks just about every rule it's visually complex and messy it features way too many colors and even gradients and the central Eagle motif completely disregards the Chinese elements of the Alliance's civilization each planet and the Alliance was supposed to have their own version of this flag with variations in the color of the stripes and the planets included which just causes even greater confusion oddly enough there was one Alliance symbol that appears briefly in serenity that is actually pretty good the Eagle might be a bit cliche but at least it's visually appealing and not overly complicated like all the other designs it's also the only design from Firefly that actually works in black and white I was so desperate to find a version of the symbol to use in our episode on the Alliance that I had to draft my roommate into making one an illustrator anything to avoid that ugly rainbow eagle flag okay now we've reached the point the video where I am forced to disappoint my esteemed colleague over at Spacedock I don't think the flag of the Martian congressional Republic from the otherwise amazing show the expanse is very good the design is a good start but the execution just doesn't work here by having the central circle which I expect represents Mars be Hollow it comes across more as a ring than a planet the red is also too dull to contrast effectively against either the orange or the black halves of the flag and as for the blue sliver it's too thin to be visually distinctive and when viewed from a distance or if you saw it blowing in the wind it's doomed to be indistinguishable from the rest of the flag now I'm guessing the blue sliver is included to represent the terraforming of Mars and I've seen a few people suggest that the blue sliver might expand as progress is made I'm not a huge fan of this either it reduces the flag to something that came to one of those charity goal tracker thermometer things and could you imagine how stupid you'd feel as a citizen of Mars if halfway through some disaster happened and you lost part of your Flags progress thankfully we do have a solution reddit user touch d-33 has created a vastly superior alternative that still incorporates all the elements of the original design now we're moving on to another design that really screws up in the symbolism Department the seal of the Earth Alliance from Babylon 5 completely fails the test of inclusivity 5,000 years of human history and apparently the only defining symbol of our civilization is just a stylized version of some initials that only works in one language and comes across as just kind of cheap there are too many colors with two versions of blue two versions of grey and green over orange which isn't particularly striking drop the initials stick to just the torch and consolidate the colors and this might have worked next up is the flag of the greater Nazi Reich from the man in the high castle I want to start off in discussing this flag by saying I completely understand why this design was chosen it is a striking image and you get that great reveal in the first episode where a seemingly normal American flag waves in the wind to reveal a swastika the design isn't bad but it's kind of lazy and the swastika doesn't work too well with a more rectangular field of blue RvB O'Malley over at deviantART has come up with a way better alternative this design is more balanced more original and I think just as effective but you do lose that initial reveal though the final entry in our list of shame is what inspired me to make this video in the first place logo of the United Empire of Earth from star citizen design wise it is completely adequate but just like it some of our previous examples the symbolism here is terrible and boring without knowing the name of the country I doubt I could tell you what those initials actually are they are just so stylized and once again it's in English apart from the olive branches which are more or less come che at this point the design has no symbolism whatsoever it's not even interesting enough to really tear into there's just nothing to talk about here all right so I'm gonna end this video with just another few quick examples of flags that work despite breaking my initial guidelines first up the flag of the United citizens Federation from Starship Troopers combining an eagle with a bomber is ridiculous and corny and overly militaristic but it makes perfect sense for the state's symbol of a nation like the Federation next is ol freebie or the flag of Earth and Futurama I shouldn't have to explain this one too deeply it takes everything wrong with designs like the Systems Alliance and placed for laughs our last one is the emblem of Hydra from the Marvel Universe I love this design it's great it perfectly matches the operating philosophy of the organization but it's also the logo of a group that has dropped any pretenses of not being completely evil if you worked at Hydra as a lower-level employee or maybe as a mid-level manager wouldn't you feel a bit apprehensive seeing this symbol everywhere on your health insurance your checks how would you explain your business card to friends and family you just have to go all in on your Yuma lifestyle and that's no way to live all right so we're done that was a long one but I hope you enjoyed the video now I'm sure there are dozens of awesome emblems and flags from across science fiction and fantasy that I didn't mention here so please let me know what I missed in the comments and is the symbol of the Earth Alliance actually brilliant does the Klingon it's igneous suck let me know what you thought of my choices here as well and as always our next episode will be out on Monday I'd like to get you a hint of what it's about but it's a little strange the Templin Institute investigates nations organizations and factions from alternate worlds and realities if you've enjoyed this video please consider liking sharing and subscribing do you have a suggestion for a future episode let us know by leaving a comment

Channel: The Templin Institute

Views: 777,122

Keywords: Templin Institute, Fiction Flags, Science Fiction Flags, Templin Flags, Emblem Meaning, Star Trek Symbols, Star Wars Symbols, science fiction symbols, fantasy symbols, symbolism in science fiction, symbolism in fantasy, Templin Institute Incoming, star trek flags, star wars flags, hydra symbol, expanse symbols, martian congressional republic flag, stannis baratheon flag, warhammer 40K symbols, klingon flag, ace combat flags, weyland-yutani symbol, babylon 5 symbol

Id: UQcrOtT3r2U

Length: 15min 44sec (944 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 21 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/PhalanxElite]

Heresy! Bring the pitchforks! Burn Osea to the ground! ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY BELKA FLAG!

No, seriously. I like the Osea flag. It's simple but effective. Although, as a personal taste, i still prefer the Emmerian flag.

[u/Striker115]

One of the first videos they made was on Yukobania, which I think is pretty cool.

[u/Wedge118]

I also like how the background the Templin Institute uses says 'COFFIN SYS'.

[u/Z0rlin]

Every Strangereal flag is refined and filled with symbolism. The best example for me is Estovakian flag. The red field means all the hardship and countless sacrifices through country's history; Two canton black stripes represents disasters Estovakia had to endure in the past - Ulysses fall and followed civil war. And rising golden bird is not only a symbol of general regime, but also is a sign of hope.

This is one of many reasons I still like AC.

[u/Balmung60]

This actually brings up something odd - what the hell do the stars on the Osean flag represent? The Strangereal map I started with when making the borderless map makes it very clear that even before the Belkan War and the annexation of North Osea/South Belka, Osea had more than six or seven administrative subdivisions.

Though, also speaking of flags that break guidelines but still work, Belka's. Imbalanced stripes usually don't work out well, but breaking up the large black stripe with the thin yellow stripe actually works pretty well.