Solution: Frog and Toad

Answer: STYLED

Written by Ethan

The flavor text hints at using ISO codes (first letters of Industry Standard Operations). Using the ISO-Alpha 2 codes, each flag pair represents a 4 letter word, in alphabetical order.

One may notice that many words are very close in spelling to each other. In fact, the words can be chained to form a word ladder, which starts at TOAD and ends at FROG. However, there are two words that are missing, TEAM and FLAG. Upon submitting "TEAM FLAG", solvers were instructed to send their team flag to us, which we responded that their team flag was "well STYLED".
There are no alternate solutions as SRAM and SRAG are not words. Coincidentally, TEAM and FLAG are the only words that complete the word chain and cannot be made out of flags (there is no ISO code for FL or TE)

Author’s Notes

If only the book was Toad and Frog :(

Our favorite submitted flags can be found in the wrapup!