Today I take a look at the new banners added to Minecraft 1.8

Banners can be created like signs, except using wool. The color of the wool determines the color of the banner's base. You can then apply colored dye to the banner to apply up to six layers of colored patterns on top of the base color.

I show off how to make banners, and what the various patterns are in this video. The I show off a bunch of banners that I created.

I've made a banner that represents each of the flag of all the countries in the world. I also have banners for all the tools and armors in the game, as well as most of the mobs, and several popular items in the game. All of these banners can be made in the game without cheats as they only have 6 layers.

You can easily test creating banners by using an online banner creator like: http://algoin.de/bngn/

A lot of good banner ideas can be found at: http://www.reddit.com/r/MinecraftBanners/
Some of the designs show are from here, but I did all the flags myself; only a few of the mob and item banners are from there.

World Download: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/38917782/minecraft/Flags%20Of%20The%20World.zip