Do you know what the flag of Kazakhstan actually looks like? There’s no doubt you can name all the colors and elements, and maybe you even know how many sun rays there are (hint: there’s 32). But would you be able to spot it if somebody showed you a fake flag? Because it happens more often than you think.
Souvenir makers, clothing brands, and even flag manufacturers get it wrong sometimes. It’s not just that the flag is printed in the wrong shades of yellow and blue–the positioning of the sun and the eagle, or stretch of the ornament tend to get overlooked. Hundreds of variations of our flag exist in digital photo stocks and Google search results that it’s hard to guess which one is the real one.
QazMonitor asked an expert about why our national symbol is misrepresented, and what it should actually look like. Kasymkhan Zhapanov is the founder of Creeon Design studio and NFTQazaq community. His design team spent two full days recreating every detail of the flag of Kazakhstan according to the national standard.
Let’s start with the colors. Why are manufacturers careless when it comes to printing the correct flag?
The way I see it, the problem is that the names of the official colors are not given anywhere. You have to search for it on the Internet, and even then the information often varies. Even if you search "the flag of Kazakhstan," the results show it in different shades. The ones who mass produce the flags refer to those images.
Why do some manufacturers distort the elements?
The elements are intricately designed. The ornament and the golden eagle have a lot of detail. It is technically difficult for a novice graphic designer to draw it in vector format while preserving all of the proportions. Hence, the distortions.
Before studying this issue, even we had been using the wrong flag. So we decided to draw it according to the general specifications of ST RK 988-2007.
The result is remarkable. What measures should we take to resolve the problem?
The best way is to attach the source of the flag (in all graphic formats) to the official Akorda website. It should be publicly available to any citizen of Kazakhstan. Then, all public institutions, kindergartens, schools, and even lawyers will use the correct flag.
Kasymkhan and his team hope to spread awareness of the issue and are happy to share the accurate design in every popular image format for as much as a repost and a follow on his social media.