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Discussion 2.0: Asexual Flag


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I agree with going really simple, but some of them are.

I don't think there's any way to get more simple than A1, for example, without leaving a colour out and becoming Germany.

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Agreed bris

however, what A1 shows is that anything that is striped will automatically be linked to the rainbow of the lgbt

but will be seen as the dirty washing version before laundry day

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I'm not quite sure what you mean about dirty washing but.... the rainbow flag has far more stripes than this one, and so do most of the other pride flags. And despite all having horizontal stripes, along with many countries, they still retain their own identity.

But what would you want for this flag as none of the options so far seem to do anything for you? Quick paint/GIMP/photoshop or something...

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don't worry bri about my opinion..honestly i rarely take myself seriously

as to dirty washing

imagine you had a rainbow lgbt flag..and during a march it got wet, fallen in the mud and dirt..and viola you have A1

a dirty rainbow flag before that needs washing

I'm still 100% behind the flag idea but have always believed in k.i.s.s.

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Ellie J, for my taste there isn't a single purple on your color gradient that's not too blue for me. :/ Except maybe the fourth from the left.

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Ahhh, okay. Well I think it looks distinctive enough on its own that even as A1 it doesn't look like a dirty rainbow flag. There are other horizontal bar options like C3 though if you want to go for the more colour route. And other options that aren't even horizontal. I am curious what sort of flag you'd design though.

And I'm with Sciatrix on the different purple options Ellie J, they were all very blue.

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Ahhh, okay. Well I think it looks distinctive enough on its own that even as A1 it doesn't look like a dirty rainbow flag. There are other horizontal bar options like C3 though if you want to go for the more colour route. And other options that aren't even horizontal. I am curious what sort of flag you'd design though.

And I'm with Sciatrix on the different purple options Ellie J, they were all very blue.

:blink: they do? they look more like actual purple to me, all the other purple I've seen have been really pinkish/red.

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Some have been very pinkish, true, but some go the other way..... so I made a chart.

purple-chart.png

First line combines the bluest and the pinkest, the second the bluest and the muted one on the golden ratio flags, and the third the muted purple and the pinkest purple.

Personally F1 and G1 are my faves but....

There's more available but that's just mixing up the ones already used on voted in flags.

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Ellie, the colors you posted are closer to indigo than purple. That might be why they look so bluish. Bristrek's gradients are quite purple-y... if I had to pick the most "true purple" color up there I would go with E1.

Here's a comparison of the original A1 (left) vs a new version with E1 purple. Thoughts?

a1comp.png

This is off of the other gradient...

a1n.png

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Guest fridayoak

I think we should go with a purple that isn't to red and not to blue, Like the purple I've been using.

Here is an idea:

colorp.jpg

Lean more twords blue than red, or a pure purple.

If I tilt my laptop screen back then they're bluey, bring it forward and they're pinky/purple. And on my big monitor they're mostly pretty bright pinky purple too. So maybe it just depends on people's screen brightness/colour settings.

edit From left to right maybe 5 and 7 are too bluey.

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Some have been very pinkish, true, but some go the other way..... so I made a chart.

purple-chart.png

Just based off of a quick look at these, something around F1 is my favorite as well.

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I don't think that having stripes similar to LGBT is necessarily a bad thing. It bears a passing resemblance to without actually saying that we are a part of LGBT, which could say that 1) we are a (non heteronormative) sexuality and as such have similarities with homo and bisexuality and 2) might be a nod towards LGBT from those asexuals among us who believe that asexuality should be included in the acronym (although this can be overlooked by those who don't).

As for Pay's "instant association"- yes, I agree that our flag should be recognised or there isn't as much point in it. But the thing is, without having a flag where you write "asexuality" on it, the instant recognition is learned. People don't "instantly recognise" the rainbow flag without knowing what it is first. People don't recognise the AVEN triangle without knowing what it is first. I agree that A1 is about as simple as you can get design wise without having a plain colour flag. If we went for the Four Colours, you can't really get much simpler.

As for colour, I'm not terribly fussed, I'll go with concensus. I have to admit though that I LOVE rich purple. My bedroom is full of rich purple. In any case, I rather suspect that the colours aren't going to stay the same anyway- I bet you that if a group of people got flags made by different flag makers, the purples would probably all be slightly differing shades. Probably not by much though.

PS Pay, what is K.I.S.S?

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Ellie, the colors you posted are closer to indigo than purple. That might be why they look so bluish. Bristrek's gradients are quite purple-y... if I had to pick the most "true purple" color up there I would go with E1.

Here's a comparison of the original A1 (left) vs a new version with E1 purple. Thoughts?

a1comp.png

This is off of the other gradient...

a1n.png

I love the last one, and the one before too.

I think I'm warming up to the first flags purple too.

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To be fair, I think it's going to be rather difficult to find a symbol that isn't already used for/associated with something else (hearts and triangles are), but would still be something that could be effectively associated with asexuality in people's minds. I've always liked the ace, specifically, because it's got the great built-in name association ("Oh, so those people with an ace on their flag are Aces!"), while still being a very simple and recognizable symbol. Inverting it makes it into a new symbol, mitigating the negative symbolism of an actual ace of spades, as well as, as ~Acer~ said "[The upside-down spade] isn't just for romantics like the ace of hearts would imply, it's something more than that which I feel is good as a complete symbols of romantic orientation...". Changing the direction of a symbol can completely alter its meaning (there are several very famous examples, but I don't want to derail this discussion), and some of the best-known symbols were originally used for something else. Sure, people who hadn't been told what it was might still confuse this 'ace of aces' with an ace of spades or hearts, but you'd have some sort of comprehension problems with nearly any new symbol (and, again, being able to call upon the mnemonic of "aces represent Aces" would help this particular symbol to be understood more readily).

Anyway, I'm not a big fan of plain 'stripes' flags. Imagine what one would look like if it had to be printed in gray-scale for some reason, say in a newspaper article.

For example, here are the flags of three rather well-known countries:

italyflag.jpgflag2.jpgflag1.jpg

Distinctive, am I right? :rolleyes:

Meanwhile, I doubt that most people, at least in North America, would have much difficulty identifying these flag's countries (unless they hadn't seen them before):

canadaflag-1.jpgmexicoflag-1.jpg

As others have said, the flags with purple and gray horizontal stripes would likely have the tendency to look like a drab, over-washed rainbow flag (yes, with less stripes, but most people don't take the time to count all the details on any given flag they see-- most people who see this flag probably assume at first that it's the gay pride flag), or even other countries flags. The others are a bit better, but still don't shout out 'instant recognition'.

The most important elements in flag design are that designs be distinctive and instantly recognizable --which should be placed as an even higher priority in this case, because Asexuality is so overlooked to begin with-- and there are just so many existing flags that are just plain 'stripes' that I don't think there's must workaround for it except for the flag to feature a symbol (on which no one seems to be able to agree). :( I just feel like sometimes you've just got to say, "well, so what if that symbol is already used for 'X': I'm going to claim it now!", whether it's some form or ace or some other symbol (I feel like the triangle is very AVEN specific, though, and that the black & white half-filled-looking heart plays into the "Oh, you're asexual, you poor thing, you'll never fall in love!!1" misconception, as well as, in my opinion, being non-inclusive of aromantics). It's not like somebody's got the basic ace design trademarked or anything (which would me my main concern about a symbol: you can change the meaning of something if you try, but you can't really avoid getting in trouble if you use someone's registered trademark).

That's just my two cents, anyway. This isn't going to be an easy situation to sort out. :(

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I was actually playing with a flag idea not too long ago just for fun ... I won't post a direct image because I don't want to infiltrate what's going on here, but I figured I'd share what I had hashed out. I gave up part way and wasn't happy with the final result, but this is where I stopped: [link click.]

edit; Now that I look at it, the top and bottom A's should be swapped. Then it'd look like it was symbolizing the shaded portions of the aven triangle.

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K.I.S.S. stands for "Keep It Simple, Stupid"... probably an American thing. :P

I personally prefer the last version I made compared to all the others. The second is nice, but seems a little washed out - rich purple is a very nice, strong color, and I think we should stick to that. :) (Plus, that way it'll match my purple hoodie. ;D Win!)

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you*hear*but*do*you*listen

Ellie, the colors you posted are closer to indigo than purple. That might be why they look so bluish. Bristrek's gradients are quite purple-y... if I had to pick the most "true purple" color up there I would go with E1.

Here's a comparison of the original A1 (left) vs a new version with E1 purple. Thoughts?

a1comp.png

This is off of the other gradient...

a1n.png

I love the last one, and the one before too.

I think I'm warming up to the first flags purple too.

Come to think of it, I'm actually fond of the darkest purple here.

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Remember as well that if we use the same flags for Pride (etc) year after year, or whatever, the colours might well start to fade anyway, so a light/weaker purple might end up even lighter/duller by the time we get enough use out of it for the money we paid for the flag...

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I was chatting in Skype with Mussolini, and he had an idea (But no graphics program) so I came up with these:

Screenshot2010-07-12at34908PM.png?t=1278967796

(The last one was for humor)

Now, the only Issue with these are they are based off a flag, but it's a very small island country, with very different colors and more rays.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_the_Seychelles.svg

K.I.S.S. stands for "Keep It Simple, Stupid"... probably an American thing. :P

I personally prefer the last version I made compared to all the others. The second is nice, but seems a little washed out - rich purple is a very nice, strong color, and I think we should stick to that. :) (Plus, that way it'll match my purple hoodie. ;D Win!)

The last is my favorite as well.

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Ellie, the colors you posted are closer to indigo than purple. That might be why they look so bluish. Bristrek's gradients are quite purple-y... if I had to pick the most "true purple" color up there I would go with E1.

Here's a comparison of the original A1 (left) vs a new version with E1 purple. Thoughts?

a1comp.png

This is off of the other gradient...

a1n.png

I still really prefer the first purple myself...

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Okay, so taking the different purple version of the A1 flag, assuming that that' the 'plain' version that is generally used symbols can be added to it on top and become stuff like this....

The Ace of Spades (upside down):

flagA1a-ace.pngflagA1b-ace.pngflagA1c-ace.png

Or with the triangle... I based this off the Polish AVEN version:

flagA1a-polishtriangle.pngflagA1b-polishtriangle.pngflagA1c-polishtriangle.png

I mean, some fine tuning and stuff can be done, but it clearly shows that it's possible but does it change which purple you think works best?

Though I agree that the third of the three both look good and will last through time better.

ETA: Watching a movie about Jerry Lee Lewis and all I'm thinking now is 'bloody hell man, THIRTEEN?!?!?! If your love was true you could've waited for her to grow up a bit before you married her. Jeez.'

Son of ETA: Ellie J those are some interesting ideas, like the first option better I have to say. But interesting option, hmmmm.

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I was chatting in Skype with Mussolini, and he had an idea (But no graphics program) so I came up with these:

Screenshot2010-07-12at34908PM.png?t=1278967796

I like these as well, but i'm not overly fond of the shade of purple used.

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I was chatting in Skype with Mussolini, and he had an idea (But no graphics program) so I came up with these:

Screenshot2010-07-12at34908PM.png?t=1278967796

I like these as well, but i'm not overly fond of the shade of purple used.

The purple can be changed remember? it stands true for all the flags.

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corduroyjackalope

Ellie, the colors you posted are closer to indigo than purple. That might be why they look so bluish. Bristrek's gradients are quite purple-y... if I had to pick the most "true purple" color up there I would go with E1.

Here's a comparison of the original A1 (left) vs a new version with E1 purple. Thoughts?

a1comp.png

This is off of the other gradient...

a1n.png

I still really prefer the first purple myself...

Agreed.

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Ellie, the colors you posted are closer to indigo than purple. That might be why they look so bluish. Bristrek's gradients are quite purple-y... if I had to pick the most "true purple" color up there I would go with E1.

Here's a comparison of the original A1 (left) vs a new version with E1 purple. Thoughts?

a1comp.png

Either of these would be good in my opinion. The other purple you had hurts my eyes. The one of the left also matches the AVEN homepage.

As a note SpirallingSnowy, wouldn't it be good to post the survey you created as an announcement at the top of AVEN, like the one there is about the purple skin being down.

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Ellie, the colors you posted are closer to indigo than purple. That might be why they look so bluish. Bristrek's gradients are quite purple-y... if I had to pick the most "true purple" color up there I would go with E1.

Here's a comparison of the original A1 (left) vs a new version with E1 purple. Thoughts?

a1comp.png

This is off of the other gradient...

a1n.png

I still really prefer the first purple myself...

Me too. I don't like the way the others look at all.

As for the symbol, I still think the best compromise between symbol advocates and no-symbol advocates is to make a flag which has no symbol, but which is designed so that someone can add a symbol if they like. There's plenty of precedent for that sort of thing in other sexual orientation communities; at Pride in my city, for example, the local queer Jewish organization carried rainbow flags with a Jewish star superimposed on them. Symbols can be added at the discretion of whatever subgroups (like the AVEN community or the community in a specific city) want to add them, or they can even be added by individual people for whom a symbol adds a certain meaning to the flag. And the basic design of the flag will still be there and recognizable underneath the symbol.

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Wow... so I guess we can say that A-sylum is pretty anti-flag, huh?

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I'm sorry if this has already been asked, but- what about this?

aceflag01.jpg

It was submitted to the last flag discussion, started by Jicragg (I'm sorry I can't give credit, do step up and take it, whoever made this!) and I was dismayed not to find it in this thread. Is there a reason for that, or...

(P.S. It has white as the top stripe, but the thread background hides it. Highlight the flag.)

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TheyWhoShallNotBeNamed

Here are my quick attempts :D. The purple I'm using is pantone 2685. It's more blue-ish than most others... hmmm

flags.jpg

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