I am working on a web with three main colors: white, blue and black, and there are two flags for select the language of the web. These icons completely break the color harmony of the web, and I wonder if it will be ethically correct edit the icons to change the color of the flags –but keeping the outline and the details– to adapt them to the project.
Thank you!
Changing the colors of the flags would be a breach of protocol/standard use, and it could be offensive to your users. For example, if you inadvertently changed the colors to those of a rival country, or to colors that had negative meanings in that culture.
Instead of flags, use standard abbreviations for the language options, such as ENG for English, ESP for Spanish, DEU for German, etc.
Personally, I've always been confused by the use of flags for different languages, since many languages are spoken in multiple countries, and there are many countries that have several official languages.
If you would like to use only flags for representation then you can try using grayscale images instead of using different color's it is legal to use grayscale images of flags of countries for print purpose.
