About

My name is Ben Szmidt and I am a creative services professional and former journalist from the Philadelphia area.

Like all of you, I have many great passions. They stretch from things as broad and common as music to those more specific such as Walt Disney World. What seems to draw me into all of these passions is that they are chock-full of details many people overlook. For me, I can’t help but explore these details to the utmost extent. It’s a sickness that is as rewarding as it can be maddening. Flags are a natural extension of this love of detail. Not only do these pieces of fabric represent a people’s entire history, culture, and ambitions, but they all have stories worthy of exploring. That’s where this website comes in…

I’ve found that most flag websites only give you the cold, hard facts about a flag’s history. While useful, these sites don’t make for a good read. It’s also pretty rare that one site has a flag’s complete history. This goal of this site is to tell the complete story behind each flag and to show what drew me to flags without the staleness that can often dominate a very specific field of study. And while I have loved flags for years, this experiment, art project, what-have-you, is a learning experience for me as well. It allows me to dive even deeper into my passion than I have ever done before while sharing the often overlooked and forgotten stories behind the flags of the world.

I hope you enjoy learning about flags just as much as I enjoy writing about them!

You can get in touch with me at benszmidt@gmail.com.