Thanks to everyone who flew their Geek Flags proudly in yesterday's Pop Quiz! Absent the ones that gave me a "download.php" file when I right-clicked them (this means you if you don't see your entry here) and ZForce, whose web server was unfortunately down, here are all of the entries for your enjoyment:
Those are all really cool. The thing I like about the Pop Quizzes is that they let people show off their creativity in ways you wouldn't expect, and this week definitely delivered.
Among my favorites this week were Celtic Dragon, FRM, Harlequin, Jack, Johnny Gear, Kytana, whoever submitted "logo.jpg" (not eligible for a victory since there's no creator name on the file, but still a nice effort), NHA247, Thundersong, Vampyrist, and Wildcard. I thought all of those did a great job capturing a design that looked like it could be an actual flag. Many of the others were also nice designs, but I didn't think they looked "flaggy" enough, or were too plain, or were reproductions of existing flags.
Taken purely as an image of a flag, I loved Celtic Dragon's. But I can't pick it as the winner because it fits into the category of a (very awesome) reproduction of an existing design. I wish there'd been an explanation of what it represents if it's not just the USA's original, but alas, I can only judge by what I am given.
Ultimately, then, I find myself torn between Harlequin's design and Jack's. With Harlequin's, I love the color and the flow, but I sort of feel like it's almost more of a book than a flag, with the clasps and bindings and such on the top, bottom, and corners. I dig the detail of the writing, though, and I believe that this could be a real thing.
With Jack's, I find the colors a little lacking, but I can easily imagine this as a "United Federation" sort of flag representing four different nations, with each triangular piece the complete flag of that particular country. Then they're all bound together in the group flag. Or something. Again, with no real explanation it's hard to know.
This is a really tough choice. But after much thinking and wavering, I'm going to go with ... Jack. I feel like there's more of a story there waiting to be told, and overall it feels more like the sort of construction that would, practically speaking, be possible to put onto a real flag.
This was a close one, though, and could really have gone either way.
Congratulations to Jack and all of the other folks who took the time out on a busy weekend to play along. Thank you all!
