Flags of the Solar System
August 19, 2019 3:33 PM   Subscribe

 
I was all ready to say: "We already have these!" But, you know... these flags are pretty cool!
posted by mr_roboto at 3:46 PM on August 19, 2019 [5 favorites]


I realized when looking at these that I still rely on Schoolhouse Rock to provide me with info about the outer planets (in this case understanding the Uranus flag via the line "Uranus is built on a funny tilt". Thank you Interplanet Janet.)
posted by Nerd of the North at 3:48 PM on August 19, 2019 [7 favorites]


These are quite good! I feel like they'd make some banging decals for transport ships.

It would be a really cool project to revisit this idea but from the perspective of people having settled on or near these planets. Like for Jupiter especially, our current understanding (afaik) is that the places most "habitable" (assuming a whole bunch of scifi handwaving) by people would be a couple of its moons. So what would a flag look like that started with this one's circle with three stripes but shifted perspective to center on the planet's many satellites? I hope this person keeps making designs because they've got a really good eye.
posted by Mizu at 4:04 PM on August 19, 2019 [1 favorite]


Are any of them Orca Face?
posted by Quindar Beep at 4:09 PM on August 19, 2019 [9 favorites]


Jockey — Supporting Greatness ‘Planets’ ad (SLYT). There can only be one flag!

[Imagining Eddie Izzard as the astronaut.]
posted by cenoxo at 4:11 PM on August 19, 2019


Are any of them Orca Face?

If you haven't clicked on the link then ... uh ... Yeah! They're ALL Orca Face!
posted by aubilenon at 4:12 PM on August 19, 2019


These have a kind of Japanese Prefecture flag feel to them. Nice variation on a theme.
posted by gc at 4:12 PM on August 19, 2019 [7 favorites]


Not bad! I particularly like the Earth flag; it's much better than most attempts I've seen.

My only complaints: The Jupiter color is weird. And the Mars flag is boring, though it's hard to come up with something better. Maybe a reference to Olympus Mons, the tallest mountain on any planet?
posted by zompist at 4:13 PM on August 19, 2019 [3 favorites]


Pluto! It's a planet!
posted by mightshould at 4:19 PM on August 19, 2019 [9 favorites]


And the Mars flag is boring, though it's hard to come up with something better.

Polar caps or GTFO.
posted by The Tensor at 4:22 PM on August 19, 2019 [3 favorites]


The flag for Eris.
posted by logicpunk at 4:30 PM on August 19, 2019 [6 favorites]




I guess Old Freebie is too US-specific? (Fair enough.)
posted by Huffy Puffy at 4:43 PM on August 19, 2019 [1 favorite]


Poor Pluto. First it was downgraded from Planet to Dwarf Planet. Now it can't even get its own flag on Reddit. It has to share a flag with one of its moons Charon.
posted by mundo at 4:50 PM on August 19, 2019 [2 favorites]


To Pluto: "Best we can tell, you're just a big hunk of nothin' "
posted by Windopaene at 4:53 PM on August 19, 2019 [1 favorite]


Jupiter, Saturn and Venus all have a feature that could be considered rings so maybe a lost opportunity to make them more easily guessed? I mean, Jupiter has rings but not THE rings. And too many/close brown tones? I am being contrary. They are nicely bold and simple.
posted by Glinn at 4:57 PM on August 19, 2019


Good idea. Here are my proposed mascots to go with the flags:

1. Mercury. A really hot and sweaty guy slumped over in a chair. He's slumped so far over that he's almost all the way on the floor! Even the lemon in his iced tea looks hot.

2. Venus. A flytrap with an attitude.

3. Earth. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson or Guy Fieri (pending availability)

4. Mars. A gun made of blood.

5. Jupiter. A king eating a great big turkey leg and frowning seriously. He has a purple robe and no time for chitchat.

6. Saturn. Hula Hoop Sally.

7. Uranus. A bowling pin rolling around the sun on its side. Its one of the anthropomorphic bowling pins from the bowling alley TV set. It's the last standing pin that gets hit by the CGI bowling ball after you knock down nine pins and then roll a spare. The pin gets shot waaaay out past Saturn into orbit around the sun.

8. Neptune. Sleepy mattress. Sponsored mascot to offset project costs. Designed to appear in podcast ad-reads.

9. Pluto (controversial). A very small species of penguin protesting his delisting from the Federal List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants.
posted by compartment at 5:07 PM on August 19, 2019 [17 favorites]


Venus is a little dull, I think the rest are pretty cool.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 5:17 PM on August 19, 2019


I like Jupiter in that it seems to be a simplified version of some Cassini imagery of the planet's atmospheric motion, but why not include the Red Spot?

I would like Uranus better if the line that seems to represent the rings was slightly off kilter, the planet's axial tilt is 97.77° instead of the right angle on the flag (but at least they didn't try to hide a goatse joke in there).
posted by peeedro at 5:37 PM on August 19, 2019


I assume the line of Uranus's rings was aligned so as to suggest a butt.
posted by straight at 5:49 PM on August 19, 2019 [5 favorites]


Uranus should have just used the Greendale Community College flag.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 5:59 PM on August 19, 2019 [3 favorites]


These are really cool! I asked my amateur vexillologist friend what he thought and he praised the geometry and their presentation as a group but thought that they suffered individually by limiting themselves to background color + white.
posted by invitapriore at 6:16 PM on August 19, 2019 [1 favorite]


Here's yer Earth flag.

Izzard flag.

Martian flag (TW Violence/possibly NSFW)

Mercury flag.

Saturn flag.

Uranus flag.

Pluto, Charon and Eris
posted by zaixfeep at 6:18 PM on August 19, 2019 [1 favorite]


These are nice!
posted by cortex at 6:21 PM on August 19, 2019


[Pushes Ganymede]
I'm flagging this

posted by clavdivs at 6:46 PM on August 19, 2019


Wait, why is Uranus's axial tilt 98º instead of 82º? Is that just so we can consider its rotation prograde?
posted by aubilenon at 6:54 PM on August 19, 2019 [1 favorite]


These are lovely.

Flag for Earth is a bit optimistic, though.
posted by turbid dahlia at 6:55 PM on August 19, 2019


Thank you Interplanet Janet.
She's a galaxy girl!

posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 7:00 PM on August 19, 2019


I assume the line of Uranus's rings was aligned so as to suggest a butt.
I'm sorry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all..
posted by Nerd of the North at 7:31 PM on August 19, 2019 [6 favorites]


i kind of love how half the comments on the reddit thread are in belter argot...
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:32 PM on August 19, 2019 [12 favorites]


How come Ceres doesn't get a flag and Pluto does? Ceres is as much of a planet as Pluto is.

I say this every time there's a planet discussion thread, and I will continue to say it because I'm still not wrong

and it's a much more pleasant hobby horse than some of the other ones I see around here
posted by Merus at 8:00 PM on August 19, 2019 [6 favorites]


Pluto! It's a planet!

It's an upstanding member of the solar system!
Apply the laws of earth and make it a victim,
Of Proposition 187
When Pluto spawns a moon it will apply to the heavens
I will damn thee like Judas of Iscariot
If you demote this mote remote to affiliate
It's like taking ET's custody from Elliot
Support your Lilliput, cause simply put,

PLUTO! IS A PLANET!

posted by Navelgazer at 8:09 PM on August 19, 2019 [5 favorites]


Merus, I'm joining your crusade.

We just need a flag. I suggest a circle with some holes cut in the flag to simulate the super-bright stuff in Occator Crater.
posted by zompist at 8:35 PM on August 19, 2019 [1 favorite]


Now there's an interesting idea, I like it! It reminds me of the Hungarian 1956 Uprising Flag, which originally got its hole when protestors cut out the communist symbol but has since become standardized as the official shape of that particular flag, and is still used for symbolic and protest purposes from what I gather.
posted by traveler_ at 9:22 PM on August 19, 2019 [3 favorites]


Where’s the kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering kaboom!

http://www.gargaro.com/webpages/general/marvin11.jpg
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:37 PM on August 19, 2019


Pluto didn't get a flag. The Pluto-Charon binary system got a flag. The barycenter of their orbits lie outside of Pluto's radius, so treating them as a binary system for vexillological purposes makes sense.

I love Ceres as much as the next person, but its mass is only 6.4% of the Pluto-Charon system's mass. Ceres should team up with the other Main Belt objects to get a flag; they would still only be like a quarter of the mass of Pluto-Charon, but a swarm of hundreds of thousands of objects led by Ceres would be an intimidating force indeed.
posted by biogeo at 10:35 PM on August 19, 2019 [3 favorites]


I really like the Venus flag, actually; it's really clean iconography for the planet's characteristic trait of being rocky but completely cloud-covered. But I agree with others that the Mars flag seems a bit off; Phobos and Deimos are cool and everything, but not really the thing I think of first when I think of Mars. Not sure what the best feature to emphasize would be, though; ice caps and Olympus Mons do both sound like good ideas. Or rovers?
posted by biogeo at 10:50 PM on August 19, 2019


Orca Face flag, for those not in the know.

Which is pretty awesome, except the Chief Sealth graphic which has been around for decades is perfection and I don’t know why we’re even arguing about it.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 11:12 PM on August 19, 2019 [2 favorites]


MetaFilter: aligned so as to suggest a butt.
posted by loquacious at 11:25 PM on August 19, 2019 [4 favorites]


I like Jupiter in that it seems to be a simplified version of some Cassini imagery of the planet's atmospheric motion, but why not include the Red Spot?

The Great Red Spot is only a transient feature. So in a couple centuries, the flag would look a bit dated.
posted by vacapinta at 1:36 AM on August 20, 2019 [2 favorites]


MetaFilter: A very small species of penguin protesting his delisting from the Federal List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:39 AM on August 20, 2019


The Great Red Spot is only a transient feature. So in a couple centuries, the flag would look a bit dated.

Guinness says the oldest continuously used flag in Earth is that of Denmark 🇩🇰, around in recognizable form since 1625 and in its current form since 1748.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:42 AM on August 20, 2019


Dunno, I wish they were a bit more like conventional flags. They're all just two tones, and mostly just occupy the centre, like logos that just happen to be in the middle of rectangles. They're not really using the space and colour and picture options that flags have available. The Welsh flag kicks all of their arses.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 4:24 AM on August 20, 2019 [2 favorites]


Is there a Mefi flag?
posted by Segundus at 4:34 AM on August 20, 2019


> Is there a Mefi flag?

i seem to remember a while back a proposal to make the flag a plate of beans on a blue field, but i'm not sure if it was ever actually designed.

(also i think there was an alternate flag that had a green background and featured someone wondering if they should eat something.)
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 5:42 AM on August 20, 2019 [2 favorites]


Mercury's flag looks a bit suspect. Does the designer think it's tidally locked?
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:04 AM on August 20, 2019 [1 favorite]


The Earth flag should be black and have a skull on it.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:08 AM on August 20, 2019


Is there a Mefi flag?

My proposal stands.
posted by zamboni at 6:32 AM on August 20, 2019 [3 favorites]


MetaFilter: treating them as a binary system for vexillological purposes makes sense.

I love you nerds
posted by Mayor West at 6:56 AM on August 20, 2019 [1 favorite]


I like the ideas of most of these, but not the execution. It lacks a lot of finesse. A lot of young or novice designers fall into the trap of designing within self-imposed rules. Like the symmetry, the fat strokes, everything being based off a centered circle, the 2 ring planets are identical just rotated. It's an easy way to have an internal style system, but it isn't informed by the subject matter.

I do actively like the earth one.
posted by FirstMateKate at 9:18 AM on August 20, 2019


And the Mars flag is boring, though it's hard to come up with something better.

The provisional Martian flag in Stranger in a Strange Land is a perfect place to start. Other designers avoid that symbol (because it's too obvious or perceived as sexist maybe) but there isn't any other icon that communicates "Mars".
posted by riruro at 9:30 AM on August 20, 2019


Some of the planets already look like flags. Seems like a good flag for Jupiter would be stripes of white, red, and tan with an off-center orange oval in the lower third.
posted by straight at 9:37 AM on August 20, 2019


For mars, I don't hate the Phobos and Deimos iconography, but really Mars should be a deep red circle on a black field.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:53 AM on August 20, 2019


To be honest, these are a bit close to "seal on a bedsheet" for my taste. Or maybe "iconset on a bedsheet". See also: Roman Mars on City Flags.
posted by smammy at 2:23 PM on August 20, 2019


Vonnegut fans might have a very specific expectation* of what the Uranus flag should look like.**

* Heh heh. Butts.

** On preview, beaten to the punch.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:46 PM on August 20, 2019


I remain partial to the Cadle Earth Flag.
posted by contraption at 6:58 AM on August 21, 2019 [1 favorite]


let's just use the un flag for earth, okay? if this planet somehow gets to a halfway decent future most likely that's the one that it'll use.

i guess mars can have its own flag if it wants, too. but everywhere else is opa territory.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 9:48 AM on August 21, 2019


TheophileEscargot: They're not really using the space and colour and picture options that flags have available.

I agree. The designer of these did take the principle of graphic simplicity to heart, but my first reaction also was that they are too uniform visually, and symbolically undifferentiated. Reminiscent of Japanese prefectural flags as variations on a theme, rather than representing specificity and difference.

Of course, real indigenous residents of each planet would bring more to the exercise.

In practice, for flags flown outdoors, there are limits set by manufacturing technology -- e.g. limits on practical colors are set by what is available in cotton and nylon bunting treated for durability, color-fastness, UV resistance; perhaps two dozen colors. The goal of being recognizable at a distance and hanging slack imposes some design restrictions as well. That said, the space of options is barely explored, even accepting the 2:3 rectangle convention.

I worked for years at a small flag manufacturer (heh, the one mentioned on the Cadle flag page) long ago.
posted by lathrop at 9:49 AM on August 21, 2019 [1 favorite]


hmm, yeah, now that you mention it I guess that big field of black on the Cadle flag would get faded and ugly in a hurry.
posted by contraption at 10:18 AM on August 21, 2019


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