badezimmer design blau

i know what you're thinking: "why does that guy get to sit down?" that's because this is radio. (music) i tell radio stories about design, and i report on all kinds of stories: buildings and toothbrushes,mascots and wayfinding and fonts. my mission is to get people to engagewith the design that they care about so they begin to pay attentionto all forms of design.

when you decode the worldwith design intent in mind, the world becomes kind of magical. instead of seeing the broken things, you see all the little bits of genius that anonymous designers have sweated overto make our lives better. and that's essentiallythe definition of design: making life better and providing joy. and few things give me greater joy than a well-designed flag.

(laughter) yeah! (applause) happy 50th anniversaryon your flag, canada. it is beautiful, gold standard. love it. i'm kind of obsessed with flags. sometimes i bring up the topic of flags, and people are like,"i don't care about flags,"

and then we start talkingabout flags, and trust me, 100 percent of people care about flags. there's just something about themthat works on our emotions. my family wrapped my christmas presentsas flags this year, including the blue gift bagthat's dressed up as the flag of scotland. i put this picture online,and sure enough, within the first few minutes,someone left a comment that said, "you can take that scottish saltireand shove it up your ass." see, people are passionateabout flags, you know?

that's the way it is. what i love about flags is that once you understandthe design of flags, what makes a good flag,what makes a bad flag, you can understandthe design of almost anything. so what i'm going to do here is, i cracked open an episodeof my radio show, "99% invisible," and i'm goingto reconstruct it here on stage, so when i press a button over here --

voice: s for sound -- roman mars: it's going to make a sound, and so whenever you hear a soundor a voice or a piece of music, it's because i pressed a button. voice: sound. rm: all right, got it? here we go. three, two. this is 99% invisible. i'm roman mars. narrator: the five basicprinciples of flag design.

roman mars: according to the northamerican vexillological association. vexillological. ted kaye: vexillologyis the study of flags. rm: it's that extra "lol"that makes it sound weird. narrator: number one, keep it simple. the flag should be so simplethat a child can draw it from memory. rm: before i moved to chicago in 2005, i didn't even know citieshad their own flags. tk: most larger cities do have flags.

rm: well, i didn't know that,that's ted kaye, by the way. tk: hello. rm: he's a flag expert,he's a totally awesome guy. tk: i'm ted kaye, i have editeda scholarly journal on flag studies, and i am currently involvedwith the portland flag association and the north americanvexillological association. rm: ted literally wrotethe book on flag design. narrator: "good flag, bad flag." rm: it's more of a pamphlet, really,it's about 16 pages.

tk: yes, it's called "good flag, bad flag:how to design a great flag." rm: and that first city flagi discovered in chicago is a beaut: white field, two horizontal blue stripes, and four six-pointed red starsdown the middle. (sound) narrator: number two,use meaningful symbolism. tk: the blue stripes representthe water, the river and the lake. narrator: the flag's images,colors or pattern

should relate to what it symbolizes. tk: the red stars representsignificant events in chicago's history. rm: namely, the founding of fort dearbornon the future site of chicago, the great chicago fire, the world columbian exposition,which everyone remembers because of the white city, and the century of progress exposition,which no one remembers at all. narrator: number three,use two to three basic colors. tk: the basic rule for colorsis to use two to three colors

from the standard color set:red, white, blue, green, yellow and black. rm: the design of the chicago flaghas complete buy-in with an entire cross-section of the city. it is everywhere; every municipal building flies the flag. whet moser: there's probablyat least one store on every block near where i work that sellssome sort of chicago flag paraphernalia. rm: that's whet moserfrom chicago magazine. wm: today, just for example,i went to get a haircut,

and when i sat down in the barber's chair, there was a chicago flag on the boxthat the barber kept all his tools in, and then in the mirror, there wasa chicago flag on the wall behind me. when i left, a guy passed me who hada chicago flag badge on his backpack. rm: it's adaptable and remixable. the six-pointed stars in particularshow up in all kinds of places. wm: the coffee i bought the other dayhad a chicago star on it. rm: it's a distinct symbolof chicago pride. tk: when a police officeror a firefighter dies in chicago,

often it's not the flagof the united states on his casket. it can be the flag of the city of chicago. that's how deeply the flag has gotteninto the civic imagery of chicago. rm: and it isn't just that peoplelove chicago and therefore love the flag. i also think that people love chicago morebecause the flag is so cool. tk: a positive feedback loop therebetween great symbolism and civic pride. rm: ok, so when i moved backto san francisco in 2008, i researched its flag, because i had never seen itin the previous eight years i lived there.

and i found it, i am sorry to say, sadly lacking. i know. it hurts me, too. tk: well, let me start from the top. tk: keeping it simple. narrator: the flag should be so simplethat a child can draw it from memory. tk: it's a relatively complex flag. rm: ok, here we go, ok.

the main componentof the san francisco flag is a phoenix representing the cityrising from the ashes after the devastating fires of the 1850s. tk: a powerful symbol for san francisco. rm: i still don't really dig the phoenix. design-wise, it managesto both be too crude and have too many detailsat the same time, which if you were trying for that, you wouldn't be able to do it,

and it just looks bad at a distance, but having deep meaningputs that element in the plus column. behind the phoenix,the background is mostly white, and then it has a substantialgold border around it. tk: which is a very attractivedesign element. rm: i think it's ok, but -- here come the big no-nos of flag design. narrator: number four,no lettering or seals. never use writing of any kind.

rm: underneath the phoenix,there's a motto on a ribbon that translates to"gold in peace, iron in war," plus -- and this is the big problem -- it says san francisco across the bottom. tk: if you need to write the nameof what you're representing on your flag, your symbolism has failed. rm: the united states flagdoesn't say "usa" across the front. in fact, country flags,they tend to behave. like, hats off to south africaand turkey and israel

and somalia and japan and gambia. there's a bunchof really great country flags, but they obey good design principlesbecause the stakes are high. they're on the international stage. but city, state and regional flagsare another story. there is a scourge of bad flags -- and they must be stopped. that is the truth and that is the dare. the first step is to recognizethat we have a problem.

a lot of people tend to thinkthat good design is just a matter of taste, and quite honestly,sometimes it is, actually, but sometimes it isn't, all right? here's the full list of navaflag design principles. narrator: the fivebasic principles of flag design. narrator: number one.tk: keep it simple. narrator: number two.tk: use meaningful symbolism. narrator: number three.tk: use two to three basic colors.

narrator: number four.tk: no lettering or seals. narrator: never use writing of any kind. tk: because you can'tread that at a distance. narrator: number five.tk: and be distinctive. rm: all the best flags tendto stick to these principles. and like i said before,most country flags are ok. but here's the thing: if you showed this list of principlesto any designer of almost anything, they would say these principles --simplicity, deep meaning,

having few colorsor being thoughtful about colors, uniqueness, don't havewriting you can't read -- all those principles apply to them, too. but sadly, good design principlesare rarely invoked in us city flags. our biggest problemseems to be that fourth one. we just can't stop ourselvesfrom putting our names on our flags, or little municipal sealswith tiny writing on them. here's the thing about municipal seals: they were designedto be on pieces of paper

where you can read them, not on flags 100 feet awayflapping in the breeze. so here's a bunch of flags again. vexillologists call these sobs: seals on a bedsheet -- and if you can't tellwhat city they go to, yeah, that's exactly the problem, except for anaheim,apparently, they fixed it. these flags are everywhere in the us.

the european equivalentof the municipal seal is the city coat of arms ... and this is where we can learna lesson for how to do things right. so this is the citycoat of arms of amsterdam. now, if this were a united states city, the flag would probably look like this. you know, yeah. but instead, the flag of amsterdam looks like this.

rather than ploppingthe whole coat of arms on a solid background and writing"amsterdam" below it, they just take the key elementsof the escutcheon, the shield, and they turn it into the mostbadass city flag in the world. and because it's so badass, those flags and crossesare found throughout amsterdam, just like chicago, they're used. even though seal-on-a-bedsheet flagsare particularly painful and offensive to me,

nothing can quite prepare you for one of the biggest train wrecksin vexillological history. are you ready? it's the flag of milwaukee, wisconsin. i mean, it's distinctive, i'll give them that. steve kodis: it was adopted in 1955. rm: the city ran a contest and gathered a bunch of submissionswith all kinds of designs.

sk: and an aldermanby the name of fred steffan cobbled together parts of the submissionsto make what is now the milwaukee flag. rm: it's a kitchen sink flag. there's a gigantic gearrepresenting industry, there's a ship recognizing the port, a giant stalk of wheat paying homage to the brewing industry. it's a hot mess, and steve kodis, a graphic designerfrom milwaukee, wants to change it.

sk: it's really awful. it's a misstep on the city's behalf, to say the least. rm: but what putsthe milwaukee flag over the top, almost to the point of self-parody, is on it is a picture of the civil warbattle flag of the milwaukee regiment. sk: so that's the final element in it that just makes itthat much more ridiculous, that there is a flag designwithin the milwaukee flag.

rm: on the flag. yeah. yeah. yeah. now, milwaukee is a fantastic city. i've been there, i love it. the most depressing partof this flag, though, is that there have beentwo major redesign contests. the last one was held in 2001. 105 entries were received. tk: but in the end, the membersof the milwaukee arts board

decided that none of the new entrieswere worthy of flying over the city. rm: they couldn't agreeto change that thing! that's discouraging enoughto make you think that good design and democracyjust simply do not go together. but steve kotas is goingto try one more time to redesign the milwaukee flag. sk: i believe milwaukee is a great city. every great city deserves a great flag. rm: steve isn't readyto reveal his design yet.

one of the things aboutproposing one of these things is you have to get people on board, and then you reveal your design. but here's the trick: if you want to design a great flag, a kick-ass flag like chicago's or dc's,which also has a great flag, start by drawinga one-by-one-and-a-half-inch rectangle on a piece of paper. your design has to fitwithin that tiny rectangle.

here's why. tk: a three-by-five-foot flagon a pole 100 feet away looks about the same sizeas a one-by-one-and-a-half-inch rectangle seen about 15 inches from your eye. you'd be surprised by how compellingand simple the design can be when you hold yourself to that limitation. rm: meanwhile, back in san francisco. is there anything we can do? tk: i like to say that in every bad flagthere's a good flag trying to get out.

the way to makesan francisco's flag a good flag is to take the motto offbecause you can't read that at a distance. take the name off, and the border might even be made thicker,so it's more a part of the flag. and i would simply take the phoenix and make it a great big elementin the middle of the flag. rm: but the current phoenix,that's got to go. tk: i would simplifyor stylize the phoenix. depict a big, wide-winged bird

coming out of flames. emphasize those flames. rm: so this san francisco flagwas designed by frank chimero based on ted kaye's suggestions. i don't know what he would doif we was completely unfettered and didn't follow those guidelines. fans of my radio show and podcast,heard me complain about bad flags. they've sent me other suggested designs. this one's by neil mussett.

both are so much better. and i think if they were adopted, i would see them around the city. in my crusade to makeflags of the world more beautiful, many listeners have taken itupon themselves to redesign their flagsand look into the feasibility of getting them officially adopted. if you see your city flag and like it, fly it,

even if it violates a design rule or two. i don't care. but if you don't see your city flag, maybe it doesn't exist, but maybe it does, and it just sucks, and i dare you to join the effortto try to change that. as we move more and more into cities, the city flag will becomenot just a symbol of that city as a place, but also, it could become a symbolof how that city considers design itself,

especially today, as the populaceis becoming more design-aware. and i think design awarenessis at an all-time high. a well-designed flag could be seenas an indicator of how a city considers all of its design systems: its public transit, its parks, its signage. it might seem frivolous, but it's not. tk: often when city leaders say, "we have more important things to dothan worry about a city flag,"

my response is, "if you had a great city flag, you would have a bannerfor people to rally under to face those more important things." rm: i've seen firsthandwhat a good city flag can do in the case of chicago. the marriage of good designand civic pride is something that we need in all places. the best part about municipal flagsis that we own them.

they are an open-source, publicly owned design languageof the community. when they are done well, they are remixable, adaptable,and they are powerful. we could control the brandingand graphical imagery of our cities with a good flag, but instead, by havingbad flags we don't use, we cede that territory to sports teams and chambers of commerceand tourism boards.

sports teams can leaveand break our hearts. and besides, some of usdon't really care about sports. and tourism campaigns can just be cheesy. but a great city flag is something that representsa city to its people and its people to the world at large. and when that flag is a beautiful thing, that connection is a beautiful thing. so maybe all the city flagscan be as inspiring as hong kong

or portland or trondheim, and we can do away with all the bad flags like san francisco, milwaukee,cedar rapids, and finally, when we're all done, we can do somethingabout pocatello, idaho, considered by the north americanvexillological association as the worst city flag in north america. [proud to be pocatello] that thing has a trademarksymbol on it, people.

that hurts me just to look at. thank you so much for listening. [music by: melodium (@melodiumbox)and keegan dewitt (@keegandewitt)]

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