Signal flags exploration
While I was watching "Up on Poppy Hill" for the umpteenth time and reminiscing on a documentary outlining all the work that goes into a Ghibli Studios film, I started to pay even more attention to the details. One of the main factors of the film is the signal flags that are displayed throughout, but until now it never really occured to me to look into what signal flags are and how they work.
Signal flags are used by International Maritime ships to communicate with one another. Each flag represents a letter or a number, but each flag combination may also represent an entire message.For example, the combination "XQ" stands for "What weather are you experiencing?" All the messages can be found in the International Code of Signals document. There are hundreds of combinations and interesting messages that give a new appreciation for the challenges that may be faced during a shipping exertion.
Messages in the film
In the film we see two messages being raised with signal flags. The first is the combination shown above which translates to "I wish you a pleasant voyage."
Shortly after, we can see a similar combination but with a striped triangular flag at the top. This flag usually means that the message has been received. In this case the ship has stated the message is received and also wishes a pleasant voyage.
The third message given in the film is a combination of five flags which spell out HOKUT, or the name Hokuto in the film. It cuts short because she only has one set of flags. The other detail which is a nice touch, is that English words are normally not spelled out fully, but instead use abbreviations in 4-5 letters, or in this case flags; so it is fitting that a maximum of five flags was raised, despite the name being six English letters in length. This bit was outlined by Gao on stack exchange.
Signal flags icon pack
I also happened to create an signal flags icon pack, which may be used as you wish for your own projects.
