Today’s icons have an odd size: 16×11 pixels. That’s because flags themselves have a long history of odd sizing. Nowadays they’re mostly 3:2 or 5:3, but there are odder ratios like 19:10 (US flags), 37:28 (Denmark), and 15:13 (Belgium) — to say nothing of Nepal, who I can only guess are deliberately trying to make life difficult.

Unlike yesterday’s icons, these show a maniacal attention to detail. Every pixel is precisely placed to evoke the detail that would be too tiny to see otherwise:

You can also see that each flag has a one-pixel border created by darkening the edges of the flag. Putting a black border around each flag would have overwhelmed them at this tiny size, but darkening the edge of the flag itself tricks the human eye into seeing one. It’s as if there’s a fine border we can’t quite make out. The bottom and right edges are darkened more heavily than the top and left edges, and suddenly the flag is a real object that’s juuuust casting a shadow.

The flag icons were created by Mark James and are free for any use without attribution.