Rio 2016: five stars, one problem
At the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Chinese athletes stepped onto the podium and watched their flag go up. Something was off. The four small stars were all standing upright, parallel to each other.
On the real Chinese flag, each small star is turned so that one of its points aims at the centre of the big star. Most spectators never noticed. Chinese viewers did, straight away.
The same flags had already flown at the opening ceremony. Chinese officials protested, the organisers admitted "there is a problem with the flag", apologised, and ordered the supplier to fix it.
Why it is easier to get wrong than you think
Rio welcomed athletes from more than 200 National Olympic Committees, each with its own flag. That is a lot of flags to get exactly right.
Every national flag is defined by its country's own law: proportions, colours, the exact position of every element. Those laws are written in the national language, and some details, like the angle of a star, are easy to miss if you copy a flag from a random picture online.
How a flag maker avoids it
For us, every flag in the catalogue starts from the official specification, not from an image found on the web. It is slow, careful work, but it is the only way to make sure the flag you receive is the flag the country actually uses.
Curious about the exact geometry? Read how the flag of China is designed, grid and all. And if you want the correct one, here is our Drapeau de la Chine.
Source: TIME, August 2016.
