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.

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.

Who owns the intellectual property of these flags?

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.

"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.

It can only mean one thing

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.

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

Flags are stupid in the first place though. All flags, it's nothing to do with these specifically.