Mistakes to Avoid when Designing a Flag

by Kevin Smith Author

Creating your own custom flag is a unique way to advertise your business. However, deciding to take on the task of designing it yourself, instead of leaving it to a professional, can be disastrous if you don't know what things to avoid.

Colors

One huge mistake non-professionals make when designing a flag is choosing the wrong colors. You can't just choose two bright colors and be done with it. The colors need to go well together so your flag is noticeable.

Not only that, but the colors need to have enough contrast. Choosing two colors that look good together is thankfully simple enough. You just need to trust your eyes. Contrast requires a little more work. You'll have to create a mockup of your flag and then use a photo editor (you can find plenty of photo editing websites that will work just fine) to change it into grayscale. If you can still easily tell the colors apart, they contrast well enough.

Details

You should avoid having too much detail. It's tempting to put in a bunch of pictures or a lot of text that gives more detail about what the flag is for. But that will overcrowd the flag and make it hard to read.Text should be large and simple. One or two vital words is plenty of text. There should only be one or two pictures on the flag as well. If you have a logo, that should be perfect. Logos should be simple yet recognizable pictures that can be seen from a distance, which is exactly what you want.

A simple arrow pointing in the direction of what your flag is for is acceptable as well. Try to either pick one or the other. You should be trying to keep it as simple as possible.

If you're still unsure about designing custom flags, look around for inspiration. Find flags that you think look good. Identify the elements that you think makes them good flags and use that as inspiration. And look at bad flags and figure out what why they don't work. Then do the opposite of whatever they did. Do that and your flag should look great.