full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Roman Mars: Why city flags may be the worst-designed thing you've never noticed

Unscramble the Blue Letters

RM: All the best flags tend to stick to these principles. And like I said before, most country flags are OK. But here's the thing: if you swehod this list of principles to any dgsiener of almost anything, they would say these principles — simplicity, deep meaning, having few colors or being thoughtful about colors, uniqueness, don't have writing you can't read — all those priceinpls aplpy to them, too. But sadly, good design principles are rarely invoked in US city flags. Our beggist problem seems to be that fourth one. We just can't stop ourselves from putting our names on our fgals, or little mciipunal seals with tiny writing on them. Here's the thing about municipal seals: They were designed to be on pieces of paper where you can read them, not on flags 100 feet away flapping in the breeze.

Open Cloze

RM: All the best flags tend to stick to these principles. And like I said before, most country flags are OK. But here's the thing: if you ______ this list of principles to any ________ of almost anything, they would say these principles — simplicity, deep meaning, having few colors or being thoughtful about colors, uniqueness, don't have writing you can't read — all those __________ _____ to them, too. But sadly, good design principles are rarely invoked in US city flags. Our _______ problem seems to be that fourth one. We just can't stop ourselves from putting our names on our _____, or little _________ seals with tiny writing on them. Here's the thing about municipal seals: They were designed to be on pieces of paper where you can read them, not on flags 100 feet away flapping in the breeze.

Solution

  1. principles
  2. municipal
  3. flags
  4. designer
  5. showed
  6. biggest
  7. apply

Original Text

RM: All the best flags tend to stick to these principles. And like I said before, most country flags are OK. But here's the thing: if you showed this list of principles to any designer of almost anything, they would say these principles — simplicity, deep meaning, having few colors or being thoughtful about colors, uniqueness, don't have writing you can't read — all those principles apply to them, too. But sadly, good design principles are rarely invoked in US city flags. Our biggest problem seems to be that fourth one. We just can't stop ourselves from putting our names on our flags, or little municipal seals with tiny writing on them. Here's the thing about municipal seals: They were designed to be on pieces of paper where you can read them, not on flags 100 feet away flapping in the breeze.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
city flag 7
flag design 6
san francisco 6
chicago flag 5
good design 5
bad flags 4
milwaukee flag 4
great city 4
north american 3
american vexillological 3
vexillological association 3
united states 3
design principles 3
basic principles 2
red stars 2
meaningful symbolism 2
basic colors 2
people love 2
love chicago 2
civic pride 2
francisco flag 2
city flags 2
city coat 2
good flag 2
city considers 2
sports teams 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
north american vexillological 3
american vexillological association 3
people love chicago 2
san francisco flag 2
good design principles 2

ngrams of length 4

collocation frequency
north american vexillological association 3

Important Words

  1. apply
  2. biggest
  3. breeze
  4. city
  5. colors
  6. country
  7. deep
  8. design
  9. designed
  10. designer
  11. feet
  12. flags
  13. flapping
  14. fourth
  15. good
  16. invoked
  17. list
  18. meaning
  19. municipal
  20. names
  21. paper
  22. pieces
  23. principles
  24. problem
  25. putting
  26. rarely
  27. read
  28. sadly
  29. seals
  30. showed
  31. simplicity
  32. stick
  33. stop
  34. tend
  35. thoughtful
  36. tiny
  37. uniqueness
  38. writing