Flags of Tomorrow: Rethinking Design Through Semiotics and Story

Flags are everywhere. They represent nations, cities, sports teams, political movements, and communities. Yet many flags rely on the same visual formulas: rectangles, stripes, familiar colour combinations, and symbols whose meanings are often vague or added afterwards.

For my master’s thesis at LUCA School of Arts in Brussels, I researched how flag design could be rethought as a modern semiotic discipline. The project, titled Flags of Tomorrow, questions inherited vexillological conventions and proposes a system that gives more weight to narrative, inclusivity, and clarity.

Many national flags are surprisingly similar. Most are rectangular, many use two or three basic colours, and many repeat the same layouts. This uniformity is partly rooted in European colonial and naval traditions, where rectangular flags were practical and easy to reproduce.

Today, that same standardisation can create confusion and limit cultural expression. I argue that flags should communicate more clearly as semiotic objects. Instead of functioning only as territorial markers, they can become visual stories that express shared histories, myths, emotions, and values.

To test that idea, I developed a system in which colours represent emotions, symbols refer to narrative elements, and the flag can be read from left to right like a storyboard. The focus shifts from ownership of land to the telling of a shared story.

One early case study was a reimagined Palestinian flag. I replaced the black triangle with a map of the 1947 UN Partition Plan to question the idea of borders as fixed or natural. When shown in an exhibition space in Brussels, the flag sparked conversations about territory, identity, and representation.

Later designs moved further away from conventional flag design. I created a deconstructed Palestinian flag made from separate fabric strips, a flag for Celtic people based on the myth of Táin Bó Cúailnge, and a flag for Māori people inspired by the creation story of Rangi and Papa.

The project also explored flags for underrepresented groups, including Indigenous peoples of the Arctic. These designs were not meant to replace existing identities, but to test how flags could become more distinct, inclusive, and rooted in the stories of the communities they represent.

Flags are powerful tools of identity and communication, but their design language has barely evolved. Flags of Tomorrow proposes that designers should question inherited conventions and imagine symbols that are clearer, more meaningful, and more representative of the people behind them.