What is Vexillology? A Flag Expert Explains

Short and simple, "vexillology" is the study of flags.

Longer answer, vexillology covers flag history, symbolism, design, and the role they play in culture, politics, and identity.

A vexillologist is someone who studies flags with the same rigor a numismatist brings to coins or a philatelist brings to stamps. The word itself comes from the Latin vexillum, a type of banner carried by Roman cavalry units, plus the Greek -logia, meaning the study of something.

I've been obsessed with flags for most of my life. At some point that obsession became a got me onto the TEDx stage, writing papers about flags at conferences, starting a flag company, designing flags myself, and editing a flag book. There wasn't one moment that made me a "vexillologist", I don't think. But if you want to be one too, this post covers what vexillology actually is, what we study, the principles behind great flag design, and why any of this should matter to you.

A Brief History of Vexillology

Flags are ancient but vexillology is not.

The word was coined in 1957 by Whitney Smith, an American scholar regarded as "the father of vexillology," who wanted a proper name for what he was already doing. He founded the Flag Bulletin, the world's first academic journal dedicated to flags, and went on to design the flag of Guyana. Smith's work formalized a field that had existed informally for centuries, giving it vocabulary, methodology, and eventually institutions.

The North American Vexillological Association (NAVA) was founded in 1967. The International Federation of Vexillological Associations (FIAV) followed, which now organizes the International Congress of Vexillology (ICV), a biennial gathering of flag scholars from around the world.

Today the field sits at the intersection of history, semiotics, graphic design, political science, and cultural studies. Academic vexillologists publish peer-reviewed research, flag enthusiasts debate flag redesigns on Reddit and in city council chambers, and a small but committed group of organizations works to raise the quality and awareness of flags globally.

What Do Vexillologists Actually Study?

More than you might think.

The obvious answer is flags themselves. But that means we can study:

• Flag design, or "vexillography," which is what makes a flag readable, memorable, and distinctive. 
• Flag history: how they developed, who designed them, why certain symbols were chosen.
• Flag use: when flags are raised and lowered, what it means to fly one, how flags communicate allegiance or protest.

Vexillology also gets into symbology, sociology, and the psychology of identity. Which groups get flags? Who decides what a flag means? Why does the same flag inspire pride in one community and outrage in another? These are genuinely complex questions, and their answers are constantly fascinating. 

Pride flags are a good example. There are now hundreds of distinct LGBTQ+ identity flags, each with specific colors and symbols chosen by their communities. Studying where it came from and what it means, IS vexillology. I wrote about it in our comprehensive guide to pride flags if you want to go deeper on that specific topic.

City and state flag design is another major area in modern vexillology. Cities around the world are trying to make civic flags that are as good or better than something like the Chicago flag, one of the most beloved and well-designed flags ever. The Minnesota flag just went through a well-publicized redesign which is still raw. These conversations draw on vexillological principles whether the participants know the word or not.

The Five Principles of Flag Design

NAVA published a set of five principles for good flag design and I think they are pretty spot on. They were developed collaboratively and have held up remarkably well. Here's how I think about each one:

1. Keep It Simple

A good flag should be simple enough that a child can draw it from memory. This isn't dumbing it down. Simplicity is what makes flags work at a distance, at full speed, in bad weather, and in the peripheral vision of a crowd. The Japanese flag. The Canadian maple leaf. The Swiss cross. These are instantly recognizable anywhere on earth.

Compare that to the many US state flags which cram the state seal or historical montages on a sheet You could not have drawn that flag from memory if your life depended on it or distinguish it from the 25 other states that do the same. That's a problem.

2. Use Meaningful Symbolism

Every element on a flag should mean something. Colors, shapes, symbols: all of it should be doing real work. Maryland's flag is a great example. Those four quadrants represent the coat of arms of two founding families, the Calvert and Crossland families. The symbolism is rich, specific, and historically grounded.

Where flags go wrong is generic imagery. A sun rising over a mountain with a river in the foreground tells you nothing about a specific place. It could be anywhere (with a mountain). Meaningful symbolism is what makes a flag say "this place, these people, this story" rather than just "somewhere."

3. Use Two or Three Basic Colors

More colors means more complexity, more printing cost, and more ways to botch a reproduction. The best flags work in two or three colors from the basic palette.

The Progress Pride Flag is an interesting test case here. It uses six colors from the rainbow stripe, plus light blue, pink, white, brown, and black. That's a lot. But it works, partly because the design is intentional rather than chaotic, and partly because the flag is merging other distinct flags into one.

For government and civic flags, the two-to-three color rule holds. Texas. Colorado. The District of Columbia. All extremely clean and effective.

4. No Lettering or Seals

Text on a flag is almost always a mistake. You can't read it from a distance. It doesn't translate across languages. It's almost always signals that the designer ran out of ideas and reached for a label.

State seals are the classic offender. Montana, Wisconsin, Oregon, Nebraska: all of them slap a detailed seal onto a blue background and call it a day. This is sometimes called the "SOB" pattern, for Seal On a Bedsheet. I've spent time on stage explaining why this is a problem and the crowd usually comes around pretty quickly, because once you see it, you can't unsee it.

That said, letters can work when they're treated as graphic elements rather than text. The Colorado flag uses a stylized C that functions visually without needing to be read as a letter.

5. Be Distinctive

A flag should be identifiable. Hold it at a distance and squint at it. Can you still tell which flag it is? For the SOB flags, the answer is almost always no. For Chicago, Colorado, Maryland, or the California Bear Flag, the answer is yes...at arms length and from a hundred yards.

Distinctiveness isn't about being weird. It's about being specific. The best flags feel like they could ONLY belong to one place or one community. That's the goal.

Why Vexillology Matters

People sometimes ask whether studying flags is really a serious discipline. And I get it. Flags can seem decorative, incidental, or just background noise.

But I believe that flags are one of the few objects that can make people swell with pride AND burn with hatred. They can make us kill one another or break into tears with joy. They encode identity, history, and belonging in simple a piece of fabric.

The myths people carry about flags are also worth unpacking. Most Americans have never actually read the US Flag Code. Most assume they know what flag rules apply...and usually they're wrong. This is all vexillology.

If you want to go deeper on any of this, I talk through flag design principles in my TEDx talks and you can read more about my background as a vexillologist on my founder page.

Frequently Asked Questions About Vexillology

What is vexillology?

Vexillology is the study of flags, including their history, symbolism, design, and cultural significance. The word comes from the Latin vexillum (a Roman military banner) and the Greek -logia (the study of). The field was formally named in 1957 by American scholar Whitney Smith, who also founded the world's first academic flag journal.

What is a vexillologist?

A vexillologist is someone who studies flags with scholarly rigor. Some are academics who publish peer-reviewed research. Others are practitioners who consult on flag design, contribute to reference works, or present at international conferences. Credentialed vexillologists often participate in NAVA (the North American Vexillological Association) or FIAV (the International Federation of Vexillological Associations).

Who studies flags?

Vexillologists come from a range of backgrounds: historians, designers, political scientists, educators, and serious hobbyists. The field is small but active. NAVA has held annual conferences since 1967, and the International Congress of Vexillology (ICV) meets every two years in a different country. The community is welcoming to anyone genuinely interested in what flags mean and how they work.

What are the five rules of flag design?

NAVA's five principles of good flag design are: keep it simple; use meaningful symbolism; use two or three basic colors; avoid lettering and seals; and make it distinctive. These principles were developed collaboratively and have informed flag redesigns across dozens of cities and states. Chicago, Colorado, and Texas are frequently cited as strong examples. Montana and Wisconsin are frequently cited as flags that do not follow them.

What makes a flag good or bad?

Good flags are simple, specific, and readable at a distance. They use symbols and colors that mean something to the people they represent. They're distinctive enough that you can identify them without reading any text. Bad flags, most commonly, fall into the "Seal on Bedsheet" trap: a detailed state seal plopped onto a solid blue background. They look fine in a frame. They communicate nothing from a flagpole.

What is the study of flag design called?

The academic study of flag design falls under vexillology. Design-focused vexillologists analyze composition, color theory, symbolism, and how visual choices affect recognition and meaning can also be called vexillographers. The NAVA principles are the most widely used framework for evaluating flag design, also known as vexillography.

By Michael Green — Founder, Flags For Good. Credentialed vexillologist, Technical Editor of The Complete Guide to Flags of the World, 4th Edition, and TEDx speaker. Last updated: June 2026.