The districts of Johor, Malaysia were given their own flags on the 3rd March of 2015, and since then the districts flags are proudly seen waving in their respective districts.
All of the ten district flags come in two versions, horizontal and vertical.
The horizontal flags are the ones that we usually see either hoisted from poles or hung against the walls, fences and others.
(Please click here to learn more about the horizontal flags of the districts if Johor)
The vertical flags are the flags that are usually hoisted from a crossbar, either on lamp posts or on walls.
Below are the vertical flags of the districts of Johor:
But it is very unfortunate that when it comes to the districts of Johor vertical flags, I saw mistakes in the designs of some of the flags hung around the districts that I had visited.
One of the common mistakes is converting the design of the horizontal flag into a vertical flag by just rotating the horizontal flag and “stretching its background”.
I first realised these mistakes during my visit to Felda Bukit Ramun, and since then, I like to observe vertical district flags whenever I travel around Johor; and I found that there are mistakes in designs of other vertical flags hung in other places too, including in Batu Pahat which I visited a few day ago.
Please click the photos for larger images:
From my observation as I travel around Johor, below are the common mistakes in the designs of the vertical flags of the districts of Johor:
Maybe some people are not bothered by these mistakes; and may consider them as little mistakes but for me this is a serious problem because of the importance and the significance of the flags as part of our love, respect and loyalty to the state of Johor.
Apart from that, it also can ruin the meaning and significance in the designs of the district flags.
The best example is the flag of Tangkak, where the blue triangle represents the Mount Ledang; but when the design of the horizontal flag is just rotated to turn it into a vertical flag, the triangle which represents the Mount Ledang is also rotated thus, it doesn’t represent the shape of a mountain anymore.
And that is why in the actual design of the vertical flag of Tangkak, the triangle is cropped at the sides so that the triangle shall remains as a symbol of a mountain.
Please click the photos for larger images:
The integral aspects of the designs are the crescent and star, and the core colour which must be placed in the right positions of the flags.
The crescent and star in the district flags represent Islam as the religion of the state of Johor, hence they must be placed at the top of the flag or in the central part of the designs; and not at the lower part of the flags as in some of the “faulty” district flags of Kota Tinggi, Mersing and Muar that I came across.
Another mistake that people made when converting a horizontal district flag to a vertical flag is to place the center point of the orthogonally divided flag exactly in the middle of the flag, which what happens in the flags of Muar and Kulai.
And in the flag of Muar, they made the first and fourth quarters black, second quarter yellow with a red crescent and star, and the third quarter red with a white crescent and star.
The real flag has the first quarter red with a white crescent and star, the second and third quarters black, and the fourth yellow with a red crescent and star.
In the flag of Kulai they also made the first and fourth quarters blue, and the second and third quarters red instead of the first and fourth quarters red, and the second and third quarters blue.
Ahmad Ali Karim's Weblog 