No Stupid Questions

I think it's basically just "feature creep." Too many ideas trying to be crammed into one symbol. And what's annoying, to me, is that the rainbow by itself was already supposed to represent everyone. That's why it is a rainbow.

Thats way too busy. Should definitely just keep the rainbow flag. Not every little niche needs specific representation, just have the rainbow as a catchall for any kind of deviation from heterosex

Edit to add : if they want to use them to identify and specify within rallies or amongst themselves somehow then whatever, go for it, as long as we can accept the layman isnt gonna have a clue and cant really be expected to.

It was poorly designed ever since they added the chevrons. The six colour pride flag was already pushing it with having six colours, but it pulled it off well and made it work. But anything else just screws it up.

Personally, I think adding intersex, transgender, black people(???) makes it seem as if they WEREN'T included in the original. I was always under the impression that the 🏳️‍🌈 flag included the whole LGBTQ+ groupings

You are judging work by somebody who doesn't feel compelled to follow guidelines made by other people with those very same guidelines. Those other people looked much more closely at flags for geographical entities, not movements, to come up with their guidelines. No one is required to follow them or retroactively abide by them. They are a great style guide but not the law.

Every flag serves a purpose. This flag's purpose is to show representation by color and design for everyone in the community. It's was the point to be busy.

Why don't they just stick with the rainbow flag? Because the idea of the rainbow encompassing everyone was made at a time when gay and lesbians came out with pride but many of the letters that abbreviate that community today were still marginalized more harshly, maybe even within homosexual circles. They weren't all suddenly anthropists and free from discriminatory points of view. Development of ideas and communities takes time. And that's why an artist took ideas from many different flags that were created over time and combined them into one. It is eye catchy and instantly recognizable, even at a medium distance still.

I don't find the result aesthetically pleasing either. But I recognize a) that wasn't the point of it and b) I'm not a member of the LGBTQ+ community. If from within that community a movement rises to change the flag into something else, by all means. Other than that my design opinions - and I suspect many other ones in this thread - are largely academic and frankly irrelevant.

Good flag bad flag is not the gospel. Take it as a starting point for new designs but don't scrutinize all existing flags by it.

"Good Flag Bad Flag" is a bunch of people's opinions. It's not any kind of official flag rule book, because there is no such thing.

I think the progress pride flag is fine.

Ugly flags & the LGBT+ community, name a more iconic duo. Like, I thought we had designers amongst us, whatever happened to them?

Americans love to subdivide themselves, and that's especially true for activists. The flag reflects that.

Rainbow flag is cool. 🏳️‍🌈

Due the spectral (is that said correctly?) nature of gender identity and sexual preferences individualized representation of every part of an infinite spectrum is, by definition, impossible. Thus a catch them all flag is the best in representing our diversity.

i just learned last week about the original lesbian flag:

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and i gotta say it's amazing

It can only mean one thing

I'm of the option that the original rainbow flag is still the best. It was meant to include everyone under the rainbow so trans people and others are already included.

I doubt it'll ever be redesigned.

The reason it's badly designed as is, is that people wanted specific inclusion into the primary symbol. There's really no way to change a rainbow; it's the standard spectrum of visible light being used as a symbol of everyone in their diversity being part of a group.

To be any more inclusive, you have to put things on top of the already inclusive rainbow. A corner piece or an inset is the only way to do that that isn't horrible looking no matter what it is.

The chevrons from the side are at least visually balanced, though not well chosen colorwise. Then again, the representative colors weren't chosen with being added to a flag in the first place.

Once you start changing an established symbol rather than just coming up with a new one, design goes out the window. It's no longer cohesive because it can't be. It's like the difference between someone planning a tattoo that covers their arm, and someone getting a few dozen tattoos on their arm. Shoving things together without a plan ahead of time is airways going to be less visually pleasing.

But, visual pleasance isn't what the flag is for, so maybe it's more effective than something planned from the beginning. I dunno, but the fact that it isn't "just" a rainbow does mean you can't mistake it for someone liking rainbows in general, so that could be a benefit of that change.

I don't agree that the original rainbow flag has too many colors though. If you don't have the standard color spectrum there, it isn't a rainbow to most people's minds, so it would be worse design. The standard ROYGBV is standard for a pigment rainbow for a good reason.

What annoys me about takes like this is that it seems to be appealing to some sort of council of gays who are in charge of the flags. Nobody is. There's no "official" flag. If you don't like the progress flag or the intersex version of it then just don't fly them or design your own that you do like. Nobody is stopping you. A ton of the pride flags in use today are just designed by random Tumblr users in the mid '10s. Which is fine, not hating on them, just making sure you know there is nothing stopping you from making one you like or flying the ones you prefer.

Its purpose isn't to be aesthetically pleasing. Trans people and POC are constantly discriminated against by other queers, and intersex people rarely are even acknowledged to exist at all, let alone treated as anything else than disgusting or sex object.

it's a long time meme that pretty much all LGBT flags are awfully designed. but they also got wide acceptance so it's hard to redesign. as a designer I've looked for redesigns and have not seen anything really. even the ones you've shared are brand new to me. where did you find those?

Why does everyone complain about the progress flag when the poly flag is right there and is terrible? Absolute garbage. Terrible color choices. Barely holds up to heraldic color rules. and Pi? Seriously? Get out of here you fucking nerd. 2/10, workshop it and come back. I hate it.

I'm cool with poly people, this is just the flag equivalent of biting your tongue when eating a burrito.

meh I honestly kind of like it - I especially think the intersex symbol ties it together really well

Aside from the design of the flags, scrolling through these ones felt a bit like a colour blind test. Especially the demi-flags.

That's not actually the original pride flag. That's the one with 2 mission stripes that were taken away due to cost. The original had turquoise instead of blue and a pink and indigo stripe, so one color more than the rainbow. Rainbows have red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

The 8 striped also symbolized different things. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_flag_(LGBTQ)

I agree with what you're saying. As they keep adding more things to the flag, it becomes cluttered and harder to see.