Prior to 2002 Antarctica had no official flag as the condominium that governs the continent had not yet formally selected one even though a particular design was in widespread use. The consultative members of the Antarctic Treaty System officially adopted a flag and emblem in 2002, which is now the official symbol of the continent. Several unofficial designs have also been proposed.
Several sources have suggested various designs, including one by Graham Bartram and one by Whitney Smith.
The Graham Bartram design uses the flag of the United Nations as its model. A plain white map of the continent on a blue background symbolizes neutrality (Bartram was well aware of the overlapping territorial claims of the United Kingdom, Chile, and Argentina when he designed the flag). This flag was actually flown on the Antarctic continent for the first time in 2002, when Ted Kaye (then editor of Raven, the scholarly journal of the North American Vexillological Association) took several full-size flags in the Bartram design on an Antarctic cruise. The bases of Brazil, Ukraine, and the UK all flew it from their flagpoles, making its raising "official". He presented a paper ("Flags Over Antarctica") which described the first flying of the Bartram design over Antarctica in Stockholm in 2003, at the 20th International Congress of Vexillology. It is perhaps the most popular flag for Antarctica, as seen by its prevalence on the Internet.
The Whitney Smith design uses the high-visibility color orange as its background (it is the international rescue color, it contrasts the best against snow, and to avoid any confusion, is unlike almost any national flag on Earth). The emblem consists of several components. 'A' stands for Antarctica. The bottom segment of the globe represents Antarctica's "position" on Earth (according to the modern convention of drawing maps with north on top), while the two hands holding up the globe segment represent peaceful human use. The emblem is colored white to represent the snow and ice of Antarctica and is offset toward the hoist of the flag so as to maintain its integrity should the flag fray badly in the high winds prevalent upon the continent. However, there is no record of it ever being fabricated or used, despite being displayed in some atlases.