Guten Abend, meine Damen und Herren. This week, I’ve been super into vexillology—the study of flags! I’m not even that into historical flags. I mostly love the designs. In fact, I’ve been lurking on r/vexillology and r/logodesign for some time now, and they’re still my favorite subreddits.

Production

Drawing

Lightsabers

I needed to get back to drawing. In fact, I’ve been wanting, craving, and toiling with getting back into drawing for years now, but the gap between where I’m at and where I want to be is so large, it’s discouraged me. I thought this would be a fun way to incorporate some of my recent interests (I’ve been watching Clone Wars and Rebels with my daughter and playing the mobile Heroes game). So I finally got around to sketching again and drew up some lightsabers. I love how personal they are and how they represent the user. It ties in well with this week’s focus on symbols and good design 🙂 

Henderson Family Flag

I did some flag designs based on my family crest. I finished four design ideas, and I’ll throw up 5-8 this week. I’m also working on my wife’s maiden name, too, although their crest has less symbols to work with 😬

Website

Book Notes

I spent some time adding books to my Book Notes page, but there’s something buggy going on with the formatting. I’ll have to revisit these, because any new additions end up crashing the page.

Consumption

Read

Article: Flag of Earth | Wikipedia

I was listening to a podcast on what a world flag would look like. Apparently, there’s already such a thing! I’ve also been doing some brainstorming all week on what flags I would design, and when considering an Earth flag, the two designs that I had in my head are very similar to James W. Cadle’s “Flag of Earth” (so good!) and u/thefrek’s design (or even more designs). Another that is great would be  Philip Kanellopoulos’s “Abstract Earth Flag”. If you’re interested in more conversation about it, check out this Quora post.

Watch

Video: Why city flags may be the worst-designed thing you’ve never noticed | Roman Mars

Roman Mars, the host of the 99% Invisible podcast, knocks this one out of the park. He gives his TED talk on his passion for the often forgotten city flags.

Listen

Song: “Heatwave – Edit” by Phoenix (Spotify | YouTube)

Such a fun and funky instrumental song.

Album: Galaxies Within Us | Kill Paris (Spotify)

The whole album is great, and I first discovered @killparis through @ToastDance. I’ve been casually loving his jams ever since, but I’ve made a concerted effort to tune in this week.

Podcast: Vexillology (FLAGS) with E. Tory Laitila | Ologies with Alie Ward (Apple Podcasts | Spotify)

This was a great dive into my obsession with flags this week. As a side note, her podcast dives into different fields of study. This was an off-the-wall episode that brought a lot of fun ideas up.

Learn

Concept: Difference Between Epidemic and Pandemic | Difference Wiki

I remember discussing this question briefly in my econ class when the health econ professor was our substitute. It’s obviously relevant to today, and I think Difference Wiki has a lot yet to be explored! 🤨

Ponder

Quote: 

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As I am slowly refining this newsletter, I’d love feedback on the format and content. Reach out in the comments or via Twitter (@JonnyMHenderson).