Two Designers Walk Into A Bar

Episode 19: Switzerland, Panama, Patriotism and the Design of Flags

Released August 18, 2021
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Very good. Uh, okay, good. I tried to not, you know, stop and ponder over ve vex solos, so I was like, this may come out, or it may sound like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. I'll do a second one. Okay. Intro. No, it did, it did. But that's, that's how you normally come out. I know. I know. I know. Intro take two. A him.

Welcome to two designers. Walk into a bar, a place where pop culture creatives. Discover design icons that make us tick, and we share a few cocktails in the process. Yep. Attention all armchair, vex. First, today we're waving the flag of good design for well flags. We're talking bright colors, geometry, history, symbolism, patriotism, and some other words we've probably forgotten.

We've mixed some fun, layered drinks, pulled out our travel guides and sketch pads. And are ready for you to join us back here in the bar. Okay, Todd, so today we are talking flags and uh, you know, we've talked a little bit before about. The American flag in our 1976 episode and mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I think we may have talked about flags some other times, like our civic posters episode.

Um, so flags have a lot of symbolism and uh, I have a flag, a national flag. Right. I think we, we decided that today we would be talking about national flags, so not flags. From, you know, states or flags from movements or things of that nature. But we decided to kind of treat this topic, uh, with kid gloves and, uh, winnow our possibilities down to whatever, roughly 200 or whatever flags there are in the world.

National flags. Right? However many countries there are. Yeah. Sovereign nations. Yes. So, okay. So I decided to go with one that was, um, Pretty fun, highly geometric. Mm-hmm. But one that even when I was a little kid, I zeroed in on it and have always really, really liked. How about you? Do you have one today?

Well, yeah. And you were also, uh, I mean, you were like, uh, a junior flag expert, weren't you? Because you've talked about that a couple times, uh, here on the podcast, that you just loved flags and you loved. That they represented, um, nationalism or patriotism or something, uh, related to a country in, in really graphic ways.

So, uh, I don't know if I've ever been that much into it, but I've always found them interesting. To be honest with you, I'm a little thinking, slightly concerned. We may have picked the same country, my friend, just because the flag that I brought to the table today. Is incredibly cool. Mm. Alright. Right. Well, we'll, we'll see who has the cooler flag?

Okay. How about that? Whose country will reign Supreme. That's exactly right. All right. Tell me about your, uh, your country and your flag. All right, Todd. Let's see if we can guess what country it is. How about that? Let's start there. Okay. All right. And then we'll see if, when I confirm that you've guessed the right country, if there's sort of a design that pops into your head.

How about that? Okay. All right. Sounds good. We've narrowed it down to only, what, 270 some countries. Right. I'm gonna give you fewer guesses than that though. Oh, okay. Okay. And it's the first guess. Uh, is it rectangular? Yes. Yeah, so it's not Nepal. Okay, now we have 269 guesses. I'll tell you what. Let's do it this way.

We can, we can do this, uh, practically in, in two different ways. Okay. We'll do hot and cold in terms of like the actual climate in the country, and then we can do hot and cold in terms of like how close you are to the actual spot. How about that? Alright. Sounds great. Sounds great. Go ahead. Okay. Well, you're the one guessing first that you, go ahead.

Well, I'll, I'll tell you if you're hot or cold, you've done, gimme a hint. You gotta gimme a hint. Oh, okay. It's, it's hot and not cold.

Okay. All right. Uh, Columbia. Ooh, very, very close and I'll explain why. That's very good, but that is not correct. Okay. Um, geographically close or Yeah. Temperature. Yeah. You're, you're, yeah, you're, you're really warm. Okay. Okay. Okay, good. Uh, da da da. Really warm Guatemala? Nope. Go farther south than that. I, I think, yeah, further south, I think.

Guatemala, uh, Ecuador? No. Um, okay. I'm gonna give you a little bit of a hint. Okay. There is a very famous and very handy. Body of water that traverses this country. Very famous and very handy. Bottle of water. Bottle of body of water. If it's a bottle of water, it's a big bottle. They probably will have a bottle of water too.

Okay. Very handy.

Oh, would this happen to be maybe, The thinnest part of the America's continent. It just might be, I, I think you're warm. I think you're super warm. Pma. Yes. Panama. Panama. Cool. Yep. Oh, man. Yeah, I, um, I know I've seen the flag, but I don't recall it off the top of my head. Mm. Well, we'll get into that in just a minute, but first I would love to know which country you're thinking of.

Okay. Well, let's do, uh, hot or cold then. So, um, this temperature is not hot of this country. Okay. So it's a cold country. Mm-hmm. Um, most of the year, most of the year, uh, Canada, no. Hmm. Think more. Um, medieval ye Old Canada. That's with an O L D E, right? Yeah. Yes, exactly. Uh, no. Well, okay. Uh, continental Europe.

How about that? Ah, okay. Hmm hmm. And it's cold. Well, I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is, is someplace like Norway. Okay. Really, really close. And picking up on the clue that you gave. This country has a very famous mountain range that borders it. Mm. Oftentimes called the blank name of Country Mountain range.

Uh, the Alps. The Alps. Right. So, Now, now narrow down which countries boarded the A. Oh, okay. So when you refer to the Alps Yeah, the Canadian Alps, the, not the Canadian A, the Guatemala Alps. No, of course. Uh, I would say this is a country that. Is not only famous for its mountains, but also its knives, chocolate, and cuckoo clocks.

Am I correct? Exactly. You are nailing it square on top of the cuckoo clock. Yeah. Switzerland. Awesome, awesome. Yes. I love the Swiss flag. Yeah, I mean, I think it's pretty well known because uh, it shows up on so many different things besides flags. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. There's an interesting history, but I want to hear, uh, I want to hear about the Panamanian flag first.

You mentioned that obviously you know Panama, you know the Panama Canal. Mm-hmm. So, um, The, the flag, you said you might not be totally aware of what it looks like, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna describe it for you. So as you guessed earlier, it is in fact a rectangle. I know that was a mind bender. Um, so it's a typical flag ratio, like a three to two ratio, uh, horizontal rectangle.

This is a quote directly from the Panamanian government in terms of the dictates of the design of their flag. Okay, so, The flag of the republic consists thus of a divided rectangle of four quarters. The upper field close to the pole white with a blue star of five points. The upper field further from the pole red, so it's solid red, the lower field near the pole blue, so it's solid blue.

And the lower one further from the pole white with a red star of five points. So in other words, it's a rectangle divided into four smaller rectangles. And then each of those rectangles is either solid red or solid blue, or has a five pointing star that's either red or blue. So I think when I was little, I really liked this flag because it reminded me, of course, with the stars and the colors, Of the American flag.

But of course it's very, very different in terms of its design. And so I think I sort of had this aha moment where it was like taking the same ingredients, but sort of mm-hmm. Using them in a different way. And so I think that's the reason that I remembered it. Mm-hmm. But a little bit more about this flag.

When the design was originally proposed, it was actually flipped. So the. The colors were in the same place, but where the stars versus the solid rectangles were was actually flipped. And so later it got inverted into what we find today. Oh, was there any reason why it got flipped? Um, I think it has to do with some of the symbolism and the, the hierarchy or the order that, that they wanted people to recognize certain things about the country.

Oh yeah. So the, the coloration and the stars and everything, it wasn't. Entirely arbitrary. There are actually some, some pretty good reasons for it. So the flag was, um, first proposed in November of 1903, and it was adopted in November of 1925. Mm-hmm. And it was when the country of Panama became independent from Columbia.

Columbia's colors are red, yellow, and blue. So they didn't want red, yellow, and blue in their flag. Now we also talked of course a little while ago about the Panama Canal. The US was a big helper in building the Panama Canal. So this was sort of a nod not only to distancing itself from Columbia, but also Panama, um, you know, giving thanks to the United States by using similar colors.

Hmm. So it's interesting. So in a way, my, um, childhood observation, I later found out doing research for this makes some sense. Um, so it's kind of funny what little kids put together, I guess Uhhuh. So the flag, the, the colors and the design were done to reflect the political situation of the time in the country.

So in the twenties, as I mentioned earlier. So the blue was intended to represent the conservative party and the red to represent the liberal party. So, you know, kind of like in the United States, except the colors are reversed, right? So the white and the flag is intended to stand for peace and purity, and the blue star in the white stands for purity and honesty of the life of the country.

Okay. And then the Red Star represents the authority and law in the country, and together both of the stars stand for the New Republic. So that was the design rationale behind the flag, um, to get everyone behind it. Oh, that, yeah. So everybody compromised and had a. A little piece of the flack Yeah, if you will.

But it, but it turned out so cleanly. It, it wasn't sloppy at all. And that's what's really, really incredible about this. Um, so as I mentioned, it was designed when Panama became independent from Columbia, and there was another design that was actually proposed and then rejected by the first president of Panama.

And, um, I feel like I need to apologize to anybody listening who either knows Spanish or Spanish is their, uh, first language because not only is Spanish not my first language, it's probably not my second, third, fourth, or fifth language. I struggle enough as it is with English. So as a result, I am sure every one of the names I will bring up talking about the history of this flag will be mangled.

Mispronounced and otherwise, uh, butchered. So I apologize. Um, so the first president of Panama was a gentleman named Manuel Amador Guerrero, and I'm gonna talk more about. That first flag in just a little bit. Um, and this was a flag that was designed but never saw the light of day. So the flag that we do know was designed by Maria Deela Osa de Amador, and she was the inaugural first Lady of Panama.

Just she was Manuel. Amador Guerrero's wife, and she was also known as the mother of the nation, so the mother of Panama. Mm-hmm. And so, I guess in a way, um, since she was responsible for the flag, she's sort of the Betsy Ross of Panama. Um, yeah. You know, she's, she's the mother of the flag. Yeah. So, Guerrero's son, uh, a gentleman named Manuel and Carac Amador.

Is generally, he was recognized at the time as a skillful artist, Uhhuh. And so he sketched the flag. He was working with his mom, sketched the flag, showed it to her, and, and she loved it. Um, you know, they, they collaborated on this and so Amador after much difficulty in avoiding the Colombian army. So you gotta keep in mind, Panama at the time was still part of Columbia.

They eventually in secret, produced three copies of this flag. And she produced them with help from her sister-in-law, Angelica Beta de Osa, and her niece Maria Amelia de Osa Bergam. Okay. So that these women all worked in secret to develop three copies, three sewn copies of this flag, and then all three of the flags were flown in Panama City upon the nation's independence.

And then after that, they were distributed much, much more widely. The original flag differs from the present flag, um, that I mentioned, uh, came about in the twenties in that the upper left quadrant at the time was, was blue. So, um, so this is, you know, everything got flipped around. So the, the stars on the top now and after independence when Blue was chosen.

As the color of one of the political parties. That's why the quadrants were shifted to make the top left quadrant white. So in other words, one political party, since we tend to read left to right, top to bottom, um, one of the parties wouldn't have. You know, this prominence in the flag and, and so wouldn't be seen as weighted toward one party over the other.

So, you know, to answer earlier question, yeah. That's the reason for the, for the switch, because just like the US flag, where the stars are in the US flag is called a field or mm-hmm. Um, the actual term is called a Canton. And so, you know, know, if you think about the US flag that is, you know, very important.

Your eye is drawn there with the 50 stars. And so they didn't want to have. One political party have that same emphasis because keep in mind, they were thinking about the US flag when they were designing their flag.

Hey Todd, do I hear a certain Van Halen song playing off in the distance? Maybe Elliot, I have an idea. Let's take a quick break. Refill our drinks and our bar mix and meet back around the table in just a few minutes.

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Are we done? We're done. We're done.

So I wanna talk about this other flag design, but Todd, first I want to hear more about the flag of Switzerland, cuz I'm really excited to learn the history of it. Well, okay, cool. Elliot, that's interesting. Um, of course I had no idea that history of the Panamanian flag, and as I started saying in the beginning, I think everybody's probably familiar with the, the Swiss flag.

It's just boldly simple. It has some really, um, striking features. And the thing that it conveys is to this just crazy stability. It's only two colors, red and white. And it's, um, a square flag made up of five other squares. And the, the five squares are white and they're centered on the bright red field.

But what's interesting is this is only one of two square sovereign state flags. Can you guess the other square flag? Oh, wow. I have no idea. I, I assume you're not gonna say Rhode Island. No, a sovereign state like Vatican City has a square flag. Ah, okay. Hey, here's an interesting, uh, chunk of trivia if that's the case.

I have actually been to both countries that have square flags. Oh, well how about that? And you mentioned Nepal earlier, which is the only non quadri Lang quadr the only flag that doesn't have four sides. That's true. But I've not been to Nepal. Okay, well, it looks like penance. Um, but we're not talking about Nepal.

Uh, we're, we're talking about Switzerland right now in the Swiss flag, which is a white cross on a bright red field, and the flag is square. The symbolism goes way back to the 12th century when what we know as Switzerland was divided into provinces. And, uh, you mentioned this earlier, they're called cantons.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So each Canton operated independently. Yet they were all part of the Kingdom of Germany and the Holy Roman Empire. And this is cool. So one of the cantons was called Sch Fitz, and I'll spell that and then clean off my microphone, but it's S C H W Y Z Sch Fitz Schitz Schitz. How would you pronounce that?

Elliot Schweiss. Schweiss. Okay. Perhaps. I mean, again, I German lineage, so I am the, yeah, but I'm also the person who apologized earlier for not knowing how to pronounce sch anything. Schweiss, maybe? Schweiss, yeah. Okay. I think, I think we should, in spirit of Mel Brooks, we should call it Schwartz. Schwartz?

Yeah. Okay. So the Canton of Schweiss or Schwartz, they at the time flew this bright red banner. Um, and there's a little controversy about what the bright red banner symbolized some say it was the Blood of Christ. Others say it was based on the flag of, uh, it was based on the Bernese flag, uh, the flag of burn, uh, which was another Canton.

So the emperor of Germany carried into battle a red banner, and he also carried a white cross, um, as a symbol of Christian power, over evil, uh, et cetera. And this emperor had the power to grant. Different countries, uh, within the empire, permission to use special symbols during the war. And he gave permission to Schwetz or Schitz to fight under the same white cross.

And, uh, along with their red banner, the same white cross that he flew now. This was, this was kind of a political play from the Canton of Schmidtz or Schitz. Uh, this granted an allegiance and created what's called imperial immediacy against the ruling counts of Habsburg. Now, I looked this up cuz I hadn't, uh, I wasn't familiar with this term, imperial immediacy.

What that means is, It's basically like a team logo. So if you share the same symbol that you're going into battle, if the emperor grants that, that means you're kind of like in the circle. You get all of the perks and all of the, uh, advances of being in direct contact. To the emperor, you don't have to go through the counts as, you know, the, the feudal system would have.

And that was the problem that these, um, cantons were fighting against. They, when they were granted, uh, this allegiance and this imperial immediacy, they were fighting against being ruled by these evil counts of Habsburg. So this helped them in that battle. So again, There are multiple cantons joining together, fighting against this, the, the counts of Habsburg.

Now enter a guy named Wilhelm Tell. Does that sound familiar to you, Elliot? It does, yeah. Uh, he wrote an overture, shot an apple off his blah, blah, blah. Um, he was a Swiss revolutionary battling the cruel treatment by the counts of Hatford house. And folklore tells us he was the one who encouraged the, some of the cantons to join together to form the Confederacy of Switzerland.

So at the time, there were three that joined to form the initial Confederacy. And although the different cantons work together as one battle unit, They still flew under different symbols. So the Swiss Confederacy, the, which was referred to now as the old Swiss Confederacy, won more territorial battles and more cantons joined the Confederacy.

And it started to become a problem on the battlefield because they couldn't identify who was friend or who was foe. So they had to find a way to kind of come together, um, because this was. Causing a great problem and a great divide. So Elliot, incidentally, this is exactly how Abba broke up too. I don't know if you knew that.

Well, it's funny you bring up music because I was thinking Imperial Immediacy would be an amazing name for a metal band. It would be. It would be. And, uh, so that, that ABBA breakup, which was also medieval and traumatic captured in this epic poem, which I'll read you a couple lines from Waterloo. Oh, okay. I was defeated.

You won the war. Waterloo promised to love you forevermore. So it's a complicated story. It's a complicated love story there. Any who's back to the Swiss, the most reliable symbol of the Confederacy became the White Cross. So all of the allied soldiers began sewing it on their uniforms. So their, their friends and colleagues wouldn't kill them.

Duh. Uh, and that became recognizable on the battlefield. So it became this unifying symbol, um, that all of the cantons, which were still independent, still ruled separately, could be joined together under, which is kind of cool, like a graphic symbol that started unifying people, which is what a flag does.

And it's also a plus symbol. It is a plus symbol. So it's adding, it's additive. That's right. Now here's a little interesting tidbit. Yeah, it's, it's about time. Cuz up until this point I've been super bored. Okay, cool. I said it was part of the Holy Roman Empire. The Latin word for Switzerland is, I didn't know this.

Helvetica, did you know that? I did know that. Oh, okay. Well of course you did. So the term Helvetica derived from the female allegory Helvetia, representing this garish tribe, Hetti, living in the Swiss Plateau before they were being conquered by the Roman Empire. Um, so the flag worked fine. Uh, the, the Swiss Cross, as we know it worked fine up until this little guy, Napoleon.

Kind of was taken over that area of Europe and they call that the heve period. He abolished the red and white flag in 1798, and he was also, in addition to abolishing the red and white flag, he's responsible for abolishing the independent Canton system too. Mm-hmm. So, While we sort of lost the Swiss flag, therefore a time we gained a more centralized government for Switzerland.

And the other thing with the the veic period, I've used that. I've also used the heve semicolon and the heve Ampersand. The heve question mark, right? Yeah. Which is what you're thinking. What's next? For the hell Vick? Question mark. It's a cliff hanger. It is. Well, I'm gonna jump off that cliff right now. Um, so the heve period, uh, it only lasted 50 years, which is a really long period if you're.

Having Hell Bennett. Period. But this only lasted 50 years. There's so many ways I could take that joke, but in the interest of our readers, I'm gonna leave it alone. Was our readers just trying our readers, our listeners, you and I, you and I are on the radio. What medium are we working in right now? I know.

Really? Yeah. Uh, all right. So, um, about 50 years, uh, after Napoleon, uh, conquered that unified the cantons in 1848. The unified flag as we know it. Became the permanent symbol. So this is, it's really cool. Again, I think, and I'm not alone, I'd heard from some oth from other folks on the innerwebs. It is a symbol of modern day design.

Uh, so obviously Switzerland being the, the, uh, home of modern day design. Fits perfectly. Mm-hmm. It reduces wonderfully. It's square. Like I said, it's this symbol of stability. Highly recognizable. Highly visible. And just as an interesting tidbit, as you would imagine, if you're familiar with the Swiss flag and familiar with the Red Cross logo in Red Cross Flag, they're often confused.

Mm-hmm. Since they use inverted colors and the um, The person who started, who founded the Red Cross was a Swiss native by the name of Ari Do Not in 1863. So I think that's kind of cool, but I don't really see. The problem since the inverted color makes the one for the Red Cross, uh, have a red cross, I think it's a little bit easier.

I just thought it was not a very imaginative logo for that organization until I read about this. Right. But also, you know, red is the color of blood. Um, right. It starts to make sense. But also the red Cross flag, if you see it as the classic, uh, three to two ratio, it's not a square flag at all. That's right.

That's right. And you know, for the Red Cross, that works too because they're going into places where there's a lot of turmoil. Mm-hmm. There's often, um, a lot of confusion and a bright white background with a bright red. Uh, cross signifies a neutral party. Mm-hmm. Just like Switzerland is a, is a neutral party.

Mm-hmm. That's great insight. I never thought about that. Yeah. Yeah. As you were talking about the flag and the fact that it's square and it's subdivided in the smaller squares, and of course we are making the, the joke a minute ago about Helvetica and the name of the typeface, it's highly geometric. Of course.

Most people I think, listening have probably. Well, everybody's seen it. You know, there's a documentary on Hellvetica, for heaven's sake, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, but the fact that it's, it's a square that's subdivided into a smaller grid, and then you think about Swiss design and their use of the grid. It just, it's very interesting and it all sort of comes together.

Yeah. And you know, we've talked about this, uh, on an earlier podcast about the beauty. Of something that is so simple that a child could draw it, yes. Could repeat the, the design of it. And certainly if you have a square flag made of, uh, five squares, that form a, a giant plus cross, uh, is one of the easiest ones.

Now, I'd be remiss if I didn't say, It actually is, uh, the, the squares that form the cross are actually one sixth broader than they are tall, so they're not perfect squares. Interesting. They're just slightly wider. And I, I imagine that's to give it some, some place to give it some weight. Um, otherwise it would probably be too geometric and probably not feel as heavy as it does.

Well, you know, Todd, I think this is a perfect segue to go from. Simplistic, easy to remember. Flag design. It may be something that was not quite so simplistic, was a little bit complicated, and ultimately mm-hmm. Failed to see the light of day. So back to Panama, right? Yes. So let's talk for a minute about the design that was shot down.

I think I mentioned to you that the flag that we see today was, in fact the second design. Okay. So Philippe Jean Buno. Va, maybe that was the correct pronunciation, with apologies to his descendants. Uh, he was a French soldier who was influential in the construction of the Panama Canal. So I mentioned the Panama Canal earlier.

How? Mm-hmm. Uh, then, and today it was so important, uh, for the country of Panama. Um, so his wife designed the first serious proposal for a Panamanian flag. And let's just say it was a bit on the rough side. So, um, it's, it's the ultimate of, I kind of like what you did, Elliot, but my wife had some ideas to share too.

Yeah. Well, uh, in this case it was sort of saying to the United States, we like what you did, but we want to put our own flavor on it. Um, so, uh, it was based on the flag of the United States. Um, Again, possibly due to our country's hand in the, in Panamanian independence, right? So I understand that. So our flag has 13 horizontal stripes.

This flag design had 13 horizontal stripes. However, rather than red and white horizontal stripes, they were red and yellow. So, um, this, of course, as I mentioned earlier, Was due to the connection to Columbia, you know, because Columbia's one of their colors is red. Mm-hmm. And the other one is, uh, blue and then of course yellow.

And um, but also who was Columbia settled by the Spanish. And what are the countries colors of Spain? That is red and yellow. So red and yellow permeating. Um, This design for, for, you know, kind of, you know, it's like Russian nesting dolls inside of something else, inside of something else here. Right, right.

Okay. So Guano VA also replaced the stars in the, the blue canton, in the blue field in the United States flag with, and this is, this is crazy, and we'll post an image of this online because even when you read it, you can't quite visualize this. Okay. So, um, instead of the stars, the white stars, There were two interconnected Yellow Suns.

Okay, so kinda like tattooing and Star Wars. There's two Suns and the Suns represent North and South America. But they're connected, of course, because Panama connects both of the continents. Oh, clever. Um, well, it's like, it's like a Venn diagram and a flag sort of. It's really more like a flaming barbell.

Because the way these two things. Okay. Not at all. Yeah. The way these two things are connected is kind of with a horizontal yellow stick of butter kind of rod or something. I don't know. Ooh. So yeah, not like a Venn diagram at all. Okay. Okay. Yeah. You're, you're giving these folks too much credit. I think.

Uh, I'm, I'm classing it up a bit. You are. So anyway, Guerrero, uh, who we mentioned earlier, the first president, he said, nah. Forget about it not happening. Um, and he was probably, uh, much more charitable, uh, or, or had more decorum than you or I would've had in terms of bouncing this design. Mm-hmm. He basically said, no, thank you, because it's too similar to the United States flag.

And, uh, so that's how his wife and son got the job to make the Panama flag because the original design was horrible. In no uncertain terms. A barbell in the middle of a field, flaming barbell, flaming yellow wire, flaming barbell. Yeah. Well, like, like burst. See, like first I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Be a sweet tattoo.

I know that much.

You know, Todd, um, thinking about flags and obviously the importance of flags, and you mentioned the Swiss flag being reduced as sort of being, uh, you know, a logo or an icon, obviously. In the Middle Ages, it was put on uniforms. We talk about how it was later adopted and used in a slightly different way by the Red Cross.

Um, it's really interesting because, you know, logos as we know, you know, everybody today knows what a logo is, but mm-hmm. Icons. Mm-hmm. And these sorts of things go back hundreds of years. And they have a lot of different meanings behind them. And obviously as we've talked about with some of these colors and some of the symbolism, the flags do as well.

And so even something like a color becomes really, really important to different groups of people cuz they want to sort of make sure that they're getting their message in these designs. And I think when you start to look at, and maybe this is another, uh, topic for a future episode. When you start to look at things like state flags or city flags, um, and you start to see how they sort of break down or they get really, really busy.

Mm-hmm. I think it has a lot to do with. Um, instead of things being less is more like the Panamanian flag or the Swiss flag. I think a lot of people just think more is more. Mm-hmm. And it really isn't, you know, flag design, like good logo design is very much distilling things down to their bare essence.

But there is still meaning when you look at something, it's still unique. It's still ownable. The colors mean something. There's just wonderful symbolism in there and it's something that a nation can really get behind in terms of feeling pride for the flag that hopefully they're seeing everywhere. Yeah, that's interesting.

I was thinking about that as I was looking at the Panamanian flag and you know, the, your description of it, um, it makes the, the artifact of the flag. Much more clear because it really does look like a balance between, um, conservative and liberal. Um, it looks like there is, uh, a solidity with the solid color and then the star, which could be independence, which could be.

Um, whatever uniformity. Um, and that, so that flag really communicates that in really simple. Again, something easy for kids to draw. Mm-hmm. And, and then compare and contrast that to the Swiss flag, which is about neutrality. Um, it uses, uh, a single color and white and. Obviously it's alluding to, um, the symbols for Christ, um, that were unifying the area of the time through the Holy Roman Empire.

But again, it wasn't, they weren't trying to tell a long, in-depth story. They were using very simple shapes and, uh, very, uh, bold colors to tell a story, uh, of their history. So flags are kind of like this. Really simple graphic historical artifact of, uh, of our times. Mm-hmm. Hey, listen, speaking of waving a flag, I'm trying to get the bartender's attention right now cause our drinks are totally gone and no one is paying any attention to us.

All right, sounds like a good plan. We'll meet around here again next time. Alright, sounds great. Thanks Todd.

Hi, podcast listeners. I'm Carol Costello, a former CNN n Anchor and National Correspondent. This January, I'm launching a podcast about one of the first cases I ever covered as a journalist. It's one that stuck. With me all of these years, the one that buried itself under my skin and stayed put. It's a true crime series about an amazing woman named Phyllis Coddle, who defied torture and death and brought a fierce rage to the quest to find her attacker.

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