Villagers themselves look for their own symbol. In that search, the village flag was created: unregulated, often designed by residents, village councils or local associations. This produces original finds, but just as often outright chaos.
“The intentions are often good, but people throw everything together,” says Van Westerhoven. In his opinion, good flag design starts with one golden rule: keep it simple.
“There is often way too much on it,” he explains. “Colors that don’t go together at all, a village coat of arms that seems to have just been stuck on or, even worse, texts on the flag.”
The latter in particular is a persistent pitfall. Take the flag of the village of Groet in the municipality of Bergen. A white flag with the village coat of arms and ‘Greetings’ in red cow letters. “A lack of imagination,” says Van Westerhoven. “Why are you doing this? Such a shame.”
The green-blue syndrome
According to Van Westerhoven, the flag of Rijsenhout is another example of where things go wrong. A two-tone with a coat of arms that never existed: “As if the village is trying to suggest something knight-like.”
On top of that comes what he jokingly calls the green-blue syndrome. Villages that believe that their flag must necessarily be green and blue, because there are meadows and water nearby. “But that applies to almost every village,” he says drily. “There’s nothing unique about that.”
Text continues under the flags.