This document discusses creating flags to represent different European countries based on the colors commonly found on popular websites in each country. It outlines a process of identifying the top 20 websites for each European country, determining the dominant colors on each site, and compiling a color palette representing the "web flag" of that country. As an example, the colors extracted from France's top websites are blurred together to create the design of a French web flag. The document suggests that cultural meanings and symbolism should be considered for colors in flags.

1. Web Flags
Creating flags of the EuroWebs
Federica Bardelli, Nadia Dresscher, Sabine
Niederer, Tommaso Renzini, Charlotte Webb
DIGITAL METHODS SUMMER SCHOOL 2012
Barcode of Europe, OMA, Rem Koolhaas

2. Flags as National Symbols

3. Flags as objects of
subversion and criticism

4. Flags as objects of
subversion and criticism

5. Flags as design challenge

6. Flags as Cultural Symbols
Food Flags, ads for the Sydney International Food Festival, October 2009

7. What would these flags look
like when using webby
metrics?

8. “Blue is still the most
predictable color on the web”
Folksonomy, 2011

9. the webbier, the bluer?
The Colours of the World Wide Social Web, colourlovers.com

10. Can we find culturally specific palettes,
by looking at the top websites per
country? Is every country’s top web

11. Step 1: Fetch a list
of European
ccTLDs (country
code Top Level
Domains).
Step 2: Compare to
the list of local
Google versions.
Result: list of 27

12. (use your
Step 3: For each research
country of the browser!)
list, query the
e.g. for Italy, go to:
local google for www.google.it
the top 20 and query:
websites. site:.it
for France, go to

13. Colour Picking Rules
Install Colourzilla for Firefox or Google
Chrome.
Choose 2 colors for each homepage:
1. if there's website header: color of header
2. if there's no header: color of the logo/
brand inside the page
3. if there's no logo: color of background
and color of the font color

15. Spreadsheet of country colour codes

16. Color Couples: Country-specific Web Palettes

17. P O R T U G A L
S P A I N
A N D O R R A
I C E L A N D
R E P U B L I C O F I R E L A N
F R A N C E
U N I T E D K I N G D O M
B E L G I O
S W I T Z E R L A N D
I T A L Y
N E T H E R L A N D S
G E R M A N Y
N O R W A Y
D E N M A R K
A U S T R I A
S W E D E N
C R O A T I A
B O S N I A
H U N G A R Y
F I N L A N D
L I T H U A N I A
G R E E C E
E S T O N I A

19. Creating a Web flag
Blurred palette of France

20. Web flag of France

21. Further research and context
Goethe, Farbenkreis zur Symbolisierung des
menschlichen Geistes- und Seelenlebens, 1809.

22. Not only are colours culturally specific....
so is their meaning.

23. ...and so is the meaning of colours
when occuring in flags

24. P O R T U G A L
S P A I N
A N D O R R A
I C E L A N D
R E P U B L I C O F I
F R A N C E
U N I T E D K I N G D
B E L G I O
S W I T Z E R L A N D
I T A L Y
N E T H E R L A N D S
G E R M A N Y
N O R W A Y
D E N M A R K
A U S T R I A
S W E D E N
C R O A T I A
B O S N I A
H U N G A R Y
F I N L A N D
L I T H U A N I A
G R E E C E
E S T O N I A
thank you!