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Flag Proportions: Thoughts on Flag Families and Artistic Unity
- 1. Flag Proportions: Thoughts on Flag Families and Artistic Unity Steven A. Knowlton University of Memphis North American Vexillological Association 48th Annual Meeting, New Orleans October 4, 2014
- 2. 4:5 2:3
- 3. 4’ 2:3 6’
- 6. 2:3 ALL OTHERS 1:2 3:5 Frequency of proportions of national flags
- 7. 10:19
- 8. 1:2
- 9. 1:2
- 10. 1:2 2:3
- 11. LIKELIHOOD OF A FLAG HAVING A GIVEN RATIO Ratio Overall Distribution Former S.S.R. Former Colony 1:2 26% 50% 43% 2:3 44% 88%
- 12. CenturyLink Arena (Boise, Idaho) https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2270/2246077828_570ef9f555_z.jpg?zz=1
- 13. Questions Provoked by Flag Proportions 1.How do we determine what makes a “flag family”? 2.Why do we disregard official proportions when preparing a multiple-flag display?
- 14. The “family tree” of the House of Windsor
- 15. Don Healy’s “family tree” of the Dutch Prinsenvlag Healy, Don. “Evolutionary Vexillography: One Flag’s Influence in Modern Design.” Raven 1 (1994): 41-64.
- 16. Flag Families Smith: Crusader Flags France Arab Revolt Netherlands Great Britain Crampton: The Dutch Prinsenvlag The British Red Ensign Stars and Stripes French Tricolore The Anarchist Flag The Red Flag The Flag of Francisco de Miranda The Flag of Marcus Garvey The Arab Revolt Flag The United Provinces of Central America The Rastafarian Flag The Egypt Liberation Movement Znamierowski: The Christian Cross The Muslim Crescent The Union Jack The Stars and Stripes The Dutch and Pan-Slav Colors The French Tricolore The Livery Colors The Pan-Arab Colors The Pan-African Colors The Red Banner Francisco de Miranda’s tricolor Manuel Belgrano’s triband United Nations Flag Whitney Smith, Flags Through the Ages and Across the World (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975), 47, 136, 154-55, 163, 186. William Crampton, The World of Flags (Abingdon: Rand McNally, 1998), 20-21; Ultimate Pocket Flags of the World (London: DK, 1997), 5-7. Alfred Znamierowski, The World Encyclopedia of Flags (London: Hermes House, 2006), 100-29.
- 22. Categories and Concepts Set of objects with shared features Example: Mental representation of the set “birds”
- 23. Shared Features Identification Inference
- 24. Categories and Concepts Set of objects with shared features Example: Mental representation of the set Still a“bird”
- 25. Shared Features Identification Inference
- 26. Concept Formation similarities of objects within a category similarities between categories
- 27. Concept Formation – varying approaches Logical Rule: Sorting by a single shared feature Exemplar Method: Developing a concept from a known example
- 28. Concept Formation – varying approaches Logical Rule: Exemplar Method:
- 29. Concept Formation – significant vs. irrelevant features FLAGS: shapes colors FLAGS: proportions
- 30. Perceptual Discrimination - Scale COARSE: FINER: Aude Oliva and Philippe G. Schyns, “Coarse blobs or fine edges? Evidence that information diagnosticity changes the perception of complex visual stimuli,” Cognitive Psychology 34 (1997): 72-107.
- 31. Perceptual Discrimination - Color Diagnostic: Non-Diagnostic:
- 32. Perceptual Discrimination - Flags USES: Coarse Scale (large shapes) Diagnostic color NOT NEEDED: Finer Scale (proportions)
- 33. Background Knowledge Which features are important?
- 34. Prior Knowledge of Flags Vexillological Literature Emphasis on: • Ascribed meanings of colors and shapes • Historical development Categorize flags based upon combination of appearance and prior knowledge
- 35. Prior Knowledge of Flags Expertise effect Greater knowledge = richer concepts
- 36. Conclusion to Part 1 “Flag families” concept – created from common colors and shapes, but not on shared proportions?
- 37. Conclusion to Part 1 Concept Formation Based on distinctive sensory data and prior knowledge Concept formation proceeds without necessity to examine flag proportion
- 38. Flag Ratios in Domestic Use
- 44. The Exception
- 45. The Effect of Uniformity
- 46. A Theoretical Solution Let L=length, H=height, A=Area=height*length=HL, R=Ratio=length/height=L/H Given an Area A and a ratio R: L=RH and A=HL=HRH=RH2 so H2=A/R Height = √ (A/R) Length = A / √ (A/R) = √ (AR)
- 47. A Theoretical Solution Flag ratio of 1:2 Flag ratio of 2:3 Flag ratio of 3:5 A=10,000 A=10,000 A=10,000 R=2 R=1.5 R=1.666667 Height = √ (10,000/2) = 70.7 Height = √ (10,000/1.5) = 81.6 Height = √ (10,000/1.667) = 77.5 Length = √ (10,000*2) = 141.4 Length = √ (10,000*1.5) = 122.5 Length = √ (10,000*1.5) = 129.1
- 49. Aesthetics of Flag Displays
- 50. Structural Map Rudolf Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 4.
- 51. Artistic Unity Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People (1830)
- 52. Scanpath & Autocorrelation Radek Ptak and René M. Müri, “The parietal cortex and saccade planning: lessons from human lesion studies,” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 07 June 2013.
- 53. Scanpath and Autocorrelation Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People (1830)
- 54. Scanpath and Autocorrelation Jackson Pollack, Number 11, 1952 (a.k.a. Blue Poles)
- 55. Artistic Unity
- 56. Artistic Unity
- 57. Flapping Rates
- 58. Conclusion to Part 2 Artistic Unity When displayed together, flags must present uniform proportions to be visually pleasing
- 59. Grand Conclusion Flags are visual symbols – how they signify matters as well as what they signify
Editor's Notes
- I’ve come today to speak on a seemingly mundane aspect of flag design: the proportions of flags. The proportions of a flag are an integral part of a flag’s design.
- In some cases, the proportions are the only way to distinguish between otherwise identical flags, such as Monaco and Indonesia. Although they have not occasioned serious study, flag proportions have not been ignored by vexillologists. The Fifth International Congress of Vexillology in 1973 established the convention that a flag’s proportions are described in terms of a ratio of the length of the hoist edge to the length of the fly edge.
- A flag which is 4 feet long on the hoist edge and 6 feet long on the fly edge is said to have proportions of 2:3.
- Flags have not always been longer than they are high: medieval flags were often square or even taller than they were wide, but the seventeenth century saw an increase of their widths.
- Bruce Nicolls attributes this change to “the increasing use of flags at sea, where the additional length improved flying qualities and reduced the rate of fraying.” Today, almost all flags are rectangular and longer than they are tall.
- Aside from those common traits, however, flags display a remarkable diversity of proportions – as the chart on this slide demonstrates. This may all seem like flag pedantry at its most trifling – but a look at the flags behind the numbers reveals a very interesting phenomenon. The proportions of any given flag are not distributed randomly. Instead, the proportions of the flags of colonial powers exert a powerful influence on post-colonial flags, even when those flags of independence bear no other graphic resemblance to their predecessors.
- For example, the unusual ratio of the United States flag, 10:19, is found in only two other national flags: the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands – both former U.S. possessions.
- The British preference for flags in proportions of 1:2 has been even more influential, as countries with designs as distinct as Canada, Dominica and the Seychelles have all retained the proportions of the Union Flag.
- The Soviet Union also flew flags whose length was double their height, and those proportions have been carried forward by many former Soviet republics.
- In a remarkable instance, Moldova, whose flag is clearly intended as one of many cultural links with Romania, preserved Soviet ratios even though Romania uses proportions of 2:3. Romania’s proportions, in turn, are the same as those of the French tricolor, upon which the Romanian flag was modeled. I could go on with examples, but I will simply conclude this demonstration with some math to prove my point.
- Based on the distribution of proportions among national flags, any given flag should have a 26% likelihood of having a ratio of 1:2, and a 44% likelihood of having a ratio of 2:3. However, among former Soviet republics, 50% of flags share the old Soviet ratio; and among former British colonies, 43% share the British ratio. Among former French colonies, 88% have the same ratio as the tricolore. The persistence of this element of flag design may be of interest to those scholars of post-colonial states in which a national identity is formed through a “complicated negotiation of cultures”, as Kwame Appiah writes. That may be a future NAVA paper. But today I plan to speak on two important questions raised by flag proportions – and namely, by how often they are ignored!
- Any of you who have attended an ice hockey game south of the 49th parallel has seen a flag display such as this one, where the Canadian flag is reproduced in the same proportions as the U.S. flag, which is produced in some proportions other than the official ratio. Despite its being misshapen (and to my vexillologically hypersensitive eyes, looking much worse for the distortion), this banner is recognizably the Canadian national standard. So, we can see that a flag, to convey its message, need only have the stripes and charges in approximately the right place. The persistence of a flag’s identity requires color and shape to remain, but not proportions.
- This observation about the loci of a flag’s essence leads me to separate but related questions. Initially, I will speak to the development of our notions of “flag families,” and the cognitive process by which we identify those features of flags which make them related. Secondly, I will address the aesthetic imperatives that lead us to disregard a flag’s usual proportions when displaying it alongside others, and instead force all the flags to conform to a single ratio. First, to flag families. If you are unfamiliar with this notion, it is an idea that was introduced by Whitney Smith in 1976 but only given a name by Don Healy in 1994.
- In a flag family, as in a biological family, flags that share a cultural heritage and a physical resemblance can be traced along a “family tree.”
- Healy traced the seventeenth-century Dutch flag through history as it influenced the Russian and French flags, and through them groups of flags such as the Slavic flags and the tricolors of independent West African republics.
- Many authors incorporate discussions of flag families into their vexillological works, and there is not a complete consensus about which flags belong in which families, nor about how many generations back the phylogeny should be traced. For example, Healy’s proposed connections between Dutch, French, and Russian flags are often disregarded and the three groups are presented as independent families.
- If we considered flag proportions an essential part of a flag’s visual identity, it would be very easy to assert that the same ties of shared history and graphic similarity serve to make these groups of flags of former British colonies and
- former French colonies just as much “flag families” as these
- Scandinavian cross flags or
- these Pan-Slavic flags. After all, they share the visual aspect of their dimensions and the cultural fact that those dimensions are derived from a colonial flag. And yet – the idea seems fairly ridiculous. Some features, such as colors and charges, make sense as indicators of flag families; others, like proportions, do not.
- The key to understanding this difference is rooted in cognitive psychology. Psychologists have learned, through diligent experimentation, a great deal about how the human brain organizes the world around it. Drawing upon their work, we can learn why and how the vexillologist organizes the objects of his or her study – and, also, how flag design reflects certain basic human mental behaviors of categorization and assignment of meaning.
- I hope you’ll indulge a small digression to define the terms of our discussion. Flag families are what psychologists refer to as “categories” – sets of objects which someone has determined have some feature in common. A category is a real-world manifestation of a mental representation of the set. That mental representation is called a “concept.” To provide a classic example, robins, finches, swallows, and egrets are in the category of birds.
- But in order to classify these animals as all being birds, a person must have a concept that there is something called a bird which encompasses some general features shared by many distinct organisms. Those shared features can be used to identify a creature as a bird – for example, knowing that creatures with feathers that fly are birds allows a person to categorize an otherwise unfamiliar animal. Conversely, the concept can be used to infer other information about an object. Knowing a creature is a bird allows a person to posit that it lays eggs and breathes air – even if those behaviors have not been observed. No concept is perfectly congruent with all the members of a category, of course.
- Ostriches do not fly, yet are clearly birds. But in most cases, concepts are a helpful and productive way of organizing the objects and ideas a person encounters.
- To bring this back to flags, consider the Scandinavian cross family of flags. A vexillologist knows that such a flag represents a country whose population has, at least historically, had roots in the Norse-speaking populations and observed the Christian religion. Encountering an unfamiliar flag in this category, he or she can posit that it represents a territory or people bordering the Baltic or North Seas.
- One of the most heavily researched areas in this field is the question of how concepts are formed. Although several models have been posited, the most recent consensus appears to be that different situations call upon different cognitive approaches to learning new concepts. The rule of simplicity dictates that in developing new concepts, a person attempts intuitively to maximize the similarities of objects within a category, and to minimize similarities between categories.
- The approach used to develop concepts, however, will vary depending upon the circumstances. For example, when faced with a group of unfamiliar objects, a logical rule of sorting may be applied – seeking out a single shared feature that offers the easiest approach to categorization. If you are lost in the woods, the best way to identify edible fruits is their sweet taste, regardless of shape, color, or condition of the rind. In most cases, however, the world is too complex for simple rules to apply. The exemplar method of concept formation is more common when encountering vaguely familiar objects. Many children will learn the name of a four-legged mammal – horse or dog, for example – and for some time, they will call almost every four-legged mammal a dog. They have recognized a concept – four-legged mammals – by observing that many objects share important features and therefore can share a name. As their knowledge of the world expands, they will learn to distinguish the concept from the original object that provided the example.
- To apply these rules of concept formation to flags, let us consider flags of the Muslim crescent family. This is simply a matter of applying a rule – does the flag contain a crescent? If so, it is in the category. In every case among national flags, a flag with a crescent represents a Muslim-majority country. The numerous red flags of Communist organizations and nations form a category created by example – knowing that the world’s greatest Communist power, the Soviet Union, used a red flag with a yellow charge, one could associate other red flags with yellow charges to the concept of a “Communist flag.”
- Any object a person encounters will have numerous features. Some are significant for concept formation, others are irrelevant. Which are the ones that matter? As we have observed, in flags the significant features are shapes and colors.
- Turning to the question of why colors and shapes – but not proportions – are useful in identifying members of categories and forming their associated concepts, research suggests two related phenomena. The first is known as “perceptual discrimination.” Studies show that during processing of visual information, subjects adjust the “scale” of their attention depending upon the level at which information is needed to distinguish objects. If a coarse scale suffices to make judgments, it is not necessary to investigate in more detail. For example, when asked to decide how similar are pictures of a highway and a bedroom, subjects needed to only quickly glance at the vanishing point to determine one was outdoors and one was indoors. However, when asked to decide how similar are pictures of different bedrooms, subjects paid greater attention to finer aspects of the picture such as the orientation of the furniture.
- Related studies show that color is also essential to categorization – when it is diagnostic. Subjects more easily recognize and categorize items when the color presented is useful in distinguishing an item. Not only are yellow bananas easier to categorize as fruit than are artificially colored blue bananas, but a picture of a green forest is more quickly identified as a landscape than a picture of a street scene is identified as a cityscape, where storefronts and automobiles may have a number of colors, none of which is typical. The more likely an attribute is to be uniquely linked with an object, the faster subjects can categorize what they are seeing.
- For flags, both these aspects of perceptual discrimination apply to our consideration of concept formation. Because almost all flags are made of large blocks of color with easily recognized charges, categorization can occur rapidly at a large scale based upon a quick survey of the colors and shapes – and the consideration of fine details such as a flag’s proportions is not necessary to form associations between similar flags.
- A second consideration of concept formation that bears on the question of why shapes and colors matter but proportions don’t is the role of background knowledge in concept formation. All our previous discussions have been focused on observation of the visual aspects of flags. However, concept formation is not limited to cognitive processing of perceptual data. An important part is played by prior knowledge about the world. Categorization is based upon the important features of an object, as we’ve seen. But knowledge of which features are important is not necessarily something people are born with. Studies show that knowledge acquired prior to exposure to a new object influences categorization. Imagine you had never seen a smart phone – but you knew that telephones exist, and their purpose is to allow users to talk to people who are not within earshot. So, if you saw a person who did not otherwise seem psychotic carrying on a conversation with a small box, you could categorize that device as a telephone; its dimensions and appearance are not crucial to determining which category it belongs in. And, by expanding your knowledge of individual telephones, your concept of “a telephone” becomes richer.
- Prior knowledge of flags is very much a part of our concept formation for flag families. I think it is fair to say that most vexillologists have learned their trade through reading books and journals; many of the foundational texts of our field emphasize colors and shapes and give little mention to proportions. Furthermore, there is often discussion of the derivation and import of a flag’s design for historical and political purposes. The concept of a flag family, then, incorporates the features that define a flag’s use as a signifying device – the presence of the Union Jack signifies some relation to Great Britain, for example. Just as we define a telephone by its ability to transmit voices over long distances and not by other features that are not determinative of that ability, so we define a flag family by the features that are used to categorize them. Those are the top-level perceptual features of shape and color, which in the case of almost all flags can be used to identify and categorize them without resort to the finer details such as proportions.
- An additional element of concept formation in vexillologists is the fact that those who have deeper knowledge of a discipline rely more on prior knowledge in their concept formation. In a study regarding tree types, botanists and landscapers each formed richer concepts than did the general population. Vexillologists, also, have a greater knowledge of flag history and development than do other people; we are able to determine a concept of “Pan-African flags” that excludes Bolivia and Lithuania because we know that the colors red-yellow-green are not the sole determinants of membership in the category.
- So, to get back to the first question I asked: why are “flag families” developed based upon common colors and shapes along with historical or cultural connections, but not on shared proportions?
- The answer seems to be that concept formation proceeds along the paths indicated by the most distinctive sensory data, augmented by prior knowledge. For almost all flags, those distinctive data are colors and shapes – so much so that the proportions can be distorted, and a viewer will still recognize the flag. There simply is not a concept formation technique that employs proportions as a meaningful categorization tool.
- Despite all that, flag designers still do insist on specifying the ratio – and within a country, flags will usually be sewn in the correct proportions. Flags sold in Canada are usually 1:2, and I recall buying a flag in Belgium many years ago that was 13:15.
- Although proportions are clearly important in a flag’s design, there is one time when they are routinely ignored: when flags are grouped for display. Numerous examples can be found to illustrate this point. For example, despite the strenuous efforts of the United Daughters of the Confederacy to establish a square-shaped Confederate Battle Flag as the accepted version, most replicas since the beginning of the 20th century have been made to the same proportions as the United States flag, in order that the two flags will have the same lengths when displayed together.
- When all U.S. state flags are displayed together, they are typically constructed with uniform rectangular proportions – even flags designed as squares (or nearly so) such as Alabama and Rhode Island.
- Similarly, displays of Canadian provincial flags often feature all flags with proportions of 1:2 to match the national flag – despite the fact that New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, as armorial banners, are designed to be much closer to square.
- And the British Royal Standard is typically manufactured in 1:2 proportions to correspond with the proportions of the Union Flag.
- Perhaps the most famous flag grouping is that at the United Nations headquarters in New York City. All member nations’ flags are flown outside the Manhattan complex in alphabetical order, with a few exceptions that produce a felicitous distance between rivalrous nations – for example, North Korea and South Korea are alphabetized as, respectively, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Republic of Korea. In order to “promote a unified look,” all flags are manufactured with the same proportions. Flags for outdoor display are manufactured in proportions of 2:3, and indoor flags are 3:5.
- An exception has been made, however, for the flag of Switzerland. Swiss representatives insisted that, “Our flag is square,” and a compromise was found to retain the 1:1 proportions but keep the flag’s area no larger than other flags at the U.N.
- While unified proportions for display of multiple flags do promote visual unity, they affect the look of individual flags. The distortion may be subtle, such as a slight change in the angle at which the arms of a saltire meet; or it may be drastic, as the lions of the Maritimes are elongated “almost to the breaking point” in a 1:2 flag. Many representatives to the U.N. report that their nations’ flags look “strange to the eye” in the 2:3 proportions dictated by that body.
- If one were seeking to display equality among multiple flags while retaining the proportions intended by each flag’s designer, a possible approach would be to extend to all countries the treatment offered to Switzerland. That is, all flags would have the same area but keep the original proportions. The manufacturers could apply the formula on this slide to arrive at an equal area for any flag regardless of its proportions.
- For example, if all flags in a display were to be 10,000 square centimeters (derived from a square flag one meter high and one meter wide), the measurements shown in this table would produce flags of equal areas. By the way, the mathematical solution to this problem was developed by my friend Adam Sales, who is a professional statistician. If you don’t number a statistician among your acquaintances, you’re missing out on valuable input to all your data analysis projects.
- While the idea of displaying multiple flags with equal area may have logical appeal, it is not likely to meet with approval from most observers. Last year at NAVA 47, I asked Pete Van de Putte about this proposal; Pete is the proprietor of Dixie Flag Company, a large retailer in San Antonio. He replied that none of his customers would employ such a display – they always want the flags to be equally sized and of the same proportions.
- The reasons for such preference have to do with certain inherent aesthetic preferences among humans. A display of multiple flags is not perceived by the eye as 14, or 51, or 194 separate items; rather, it is a single tableau composed of numerous related elements. In works of visual art, one of the most prized attributes is unity of composition. As François Molnar expresses it, “The composition of a picture, and consequently one’s aesthetic emotion, depend to a large degree on the way our eye explores the areas of this surface so as to re-create its totality.” That is to say, if a composition allows the eye to move comfortably across its surface, then it has aesthetic unity which is pleasing.
- Rudolf Arnheim shows that visual compositions have a “structural map,” through which the eye is drawn in a particular direction by elements such as parallel lines or diagonal strokes. Compositions with a high degree of unity place artistic elements along the axes of the structural map and diminish those aspects of the tableau lying outside the chosen axes.
- As a case study, let us examine one of the most famous flag-related paintings, Liberty Leading the People, painted in 1830 by Eugène Delacroix to commemorate the revolution of that year which restored the tricolore as the permanent flag of France, supplanting the white Bourbon flag of Charles X. Delacroix uses numerous elongated elements, including the cutlass on the left, the musket borne by the top-hatted man, the upraised right arm of the boy, the rifle carried by Liberty, and the flagstaff, employed in nearly parallel lines, to draw the eye upward and rightward to the figure of Liberty and the flag of republicanism.
- The phenomenon of the eye following strong lines has not just a psychological rationale, but also a physiological explanation. As the eye moves across a visual field, it is constantly acquiring data in the form of the small section of an image that the eye has focused on; the visual cortex of the brain maps those data into a larger picture by retaining the small sections in short-term memory and contextualizing new data into the set of images previously acquired. Eye movement proceeds along a “scanpath” in which the eye makes small motions in either random or circular patterns. In a process called autocorrelation, when the eye encounters a visual datum that corresponds to a very recently encountered image, the eye moves in the direction implied by the pattern established by the location of similar visual data. That is, when the eye encounters similar-looking images in a pattern, it proceeds to move in the direction that reveals how those images are arranged. Figure B on this slide traces the eye movements of a person viewing the portrait in Figure A; as you can see, the eye traces the important lines and spends little time on blank spaces.
- The eye viewing Liberty Leading the People may hit upon the barrel of the musket and, seeing a cluster of gunmetal arranged diagonally, will follow that color to the end of the gun.
- Artworks in which the eye moves easily along such scanpaths are those that most people find aesthetically satisfying. Even non-representational art, such as that of Jackson Pollock, exhibits reliance upon autocorrelation to achieve its effects. Conversely, those pieces where artistic unity is not achieved are deemed unpleasing.
- Considered as a single visual presentation, then, a multiple-flag display in which all flags have the same proportions will present artistic unity – the tops and bottoms of the flags (assuming a wind stiff enough to unfurl them) will present a continuous line that provides a scanpath for the eye to follow to the end of the display.
- On the other hand, a display of flags with equal area but disparate proportions will fail to achieve artistic unity. The edges of the flags will be discontinuous, forcing the eye to continually re-seek its scanpath. (I don’t believe such a flag display has ever been put together using real flags, so please indulge my home arts-and-crafts rendition.)
- An additional complication is provided by the flapping motion of flags in the breeze. The frequency of flapping is a function of the ratio of the length of the flag to the diameter of the pole. Flags of a uniform length in a steady breeze will flap at about the same rate. However, in a display of flags of mixed length, the shorter flags will flap more frequently. The variance in flapping rates also undermines artistic unity.
- Flags are, ultimately, visual expressions embedded with deep symbolic significance, and an important part of that visual expression is a flag’s proportions. Despite that, basic aesthetics dictate that individual flags must be made to appear proportionally identical when displayed together. To do otherwise presents a displeasing, fragmented image that destroys the beauty otherwise present in the banners so beloved by vexillologists and ordinary citizens alike.
- I’m sure many of you were slightly puzzled by the thought that a talk on flag proportions could occupy 20 minutes; however, I hope that the connections between the questions raised today and important psychological and aesthetic principles are more clear now. Flags are symbolic objects which operate primarily through visual perception, and understanding how humans process, categorize, and synthesize visual data is crucial to our appreciation of the symbolic effect that is the main focus of our discipline.