Aliens, you'll see this Earth flag when we colonize your home planets

There's the kind of planning ahead that means that you carefully wrap your Christmas lights before you store them for the season, and there's the kind of planning ahead that means that you create a flag for astronauts to plant after they've conquered alien planets. Graphic designer Oskar Pernefeldt prefers to do the latter.

The student at Beckman's College of Design in Stockholm has designed the International Flag for Planet Earth, a blue and white representation of our home planet and the people on it. On the project's website, Pernefeldt writes:

Current expeditions in outer space use different national flags depending on which country is funding the voyage. The space travelers, however, are more than just representatives of their own countries. They are representatives of planet Earth.

So Pernefeldt researched the flags that already exist on our planet, their colors and symbols, shapes and sizes. He designed a white logo consisting of seven interlaced rings – one for each continent – that connect to form the shape of a flower. The symbol is "a reminder that we should all stand united, celebrate life itself [and] remind us that all life is connected in one way or another." The particular shade of blue used on the background was selected because it would stand out when sewn onto an astronaut's white uniform and when contrasted against the inky blackness of outer space.

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Pernefeldt seems to have put a tremendous amount of thought and consideration into his design, and has illustrated how the flag would look when displayed on a space suit (NASA was listed as one of the project's contributors, though he does not elaborate on NASA's role), in a sports arena (in case we're playing Space Jam for real) and when flown on the porch of a neatly appointed suburban home. But because The Internet is The Internet, some commenters have already taken issue with the design, harrumph-ing over everything from the symbolism to the symbol itself, to the lack of red, white and blue. One Engadget commenter wrote:

Why not an image of the Earth? That's pretty universal, right? Alternatively, I would also vote for a bear holding an assault rifle, riding a velociraptor, that is also holding a rifle, all riding a shark, holding a grenade in its mouth.

Back to the drawing board, Oskar.