FlagLore
The Journal
Hoist vs. Fly: The Vocabulary Every Flag Maker Uses
A guided tour of flag anatomy — hoist, fly, field, canton, and the rest of the vocabulary that lets flag makers describe any design precisely.
Why Flag Ratios Vary: 1:1, 2:3, 3:5, and 1:2 Explained
Flags are surprisingly inconsistent in shape — from perfect squares to long, narrow rectangles. Here's what a hoist:fly ratio means and why it varies so much.
A Beginner's Guide to Flag Semaphore
How two hand-held flags and seven arm positions became a complete signalling alphabet, and how to start reading and sending it yourself.
The Language of Heraldic Tinctures: Colors, Metals, and the Rule of Tincture
How heraldry organizes color into metals, colours, and a strict rule about combining them — plus the centuries-old system for showing color in black and white.
How to Choose the Right Flag Size for Your Flagpole
The rule of thumb flag manufacturers use to match a flag to a pole, why bigger isn't automatically better, and how to keep a flying flag lasting longer.
Vertical vs. Horizontal: Why Flag Layouts Differ Around the World
Stripes can run sideways or up and down, crosses can sit centered or off to one side — a tour of the major flag layout families and the design logic behind each.
Maritime Signal Flags: The International Code of Signals
How a standardized set of flags lets ships from any country exchange essential messages at sea without sharing a spoken language.
What a Flag Construction Sheet Actually Shows
A ratio only fixes a flag's outer rectangle. A construction sheet fixes everything inside it — worked out here on a unit grid, using our own proportion calculator.
Sizing a Flag for Your Flagpole: Seven Worked Examples
Seven real pole-and-ratio combinations run through the actual sizing calculator, including a couple of rounding surprises and a hoist comparison worth knowing about before you order.
How Flag Colors Are Actually Specified: Pantone, CMYK, and the "Official Color" Problem
Hex, RGB, CMYK, and Pantone all describe color differently, and most flags were never assigned a single official value in any of them. Here's what that actually means in practice.
The Rule of Tincture: Why Heraldry Bans Color-on-Color
Never metal on metal, never colour on colour. Running the actual tincture numbers shows the rule of tincture is really a brightness-contrast rule wearing old-fashioned language.
The Five Principles of Good Flag Design
A short, widely cited framework distills good flag design into five principles. Here's what each one means in practice, with a worked color-palette example.