Q. What about the flags of other countries?
A. I don’t really see all that many vexillological crimes being committed there. Sure, there’s the occasional mess like Fiji’s, a cringe-worthy one like the map of Cyprus, and Liberia really needs to go back to the drawing board and come up with something original. But on the whole, national flags are pretty good. They’re what the states and provinces should aspire to.
Q. What about Mexican state flags?
A. Most of the states of Mexico don’t have flags. This means there isn’t a problem there for me to fix. I also don’t feel qualified to invent flags for states in a country I don’t have a cultural connection to. (I am an American citizen/resident, and I have family in Canada.)
Q. What about the former Confederate states? What kind of “cultural connection” do you have to these states, whose cultural heritage you’re erasing?
A. Fuck the Confederate States of America and their cultural heritage of slavery and white supremacy.
Q. Who owns these designs?
A. That depends. The official flag designs are presumably Public Domain, because that’s how governments work, and most of them are way too old for copyright to still be valid. A few of the newer flag proposals that I didn’t come up with are probably owned by the original designer. The copyright for the ones I created from whole cloth (so to speak) are… hereby assigned to whatever state/province/territory they represent. If any of them want to adopt my design for them, or take it and rework it into something that their committees or voters will approve: go for it! Maybe send me one, though?
Q. What software are you using to make these?
A. Not that the software really makes much difference to the quality of the designs… but I’m using Affinity Designer. It’s an alternative to Adobe Illustrator, that – with its one-time license of $50 – is far cheaper. (It has a companion program called Affinity Photo, which is a great replacement for Photoshop, at the same price.) Just Say No to Software Rental.