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Everything you need to know about coats of arms in logos
A coat of arms is a heraldic symbol that represents a person, a family, or an institution of some kind. While coats of arms were a common brand identification centuries ago, nowadays only very few organizations use a coat of arms in their logo. These mainly constitute three categories: governmental bodies, sports clubs, and universities. These institutions have a longstanding heritage that is transmitted via their arms.
However, with the trend and need to modernize and simplify logos, especially for digital usage, there arises a problem. Most coats of arms are detailed, hand-drawn, and complex drawings, too complicated to easily digitalize and scale down. Coats of arms can either be vectorized, resembling or tracing drawn variations, or be created anew, often with simplified and reduced elements.
A heraldic achievement is a symbol that represents an entity. It is described by a blazon. The coat of arms — often used as a term describing the whole achievement — is the focal point of the achievement, often in the shape of a shield. Additional elements include supporters to the side (often animals), a motto below the shield, and a crown or helmet on top with or without a crest. While crest is often incorrectly used a synonym for coat of arms, it only means the element atop the helmet or crown. coats of arms are described (blazoned) from the wearer’s perspective, meaning that the left and right are swapped.
Coats of arms are not like logos which can be changed arbitrarily. A coat of arms is a heraldic emblem with a fixed description. The individual design and style can vary, but the content must adhere to the blazon. That means that while elements can be stylized, partly omitted or reduced, or modified, the general layout and concept of the arms cannot. Thus, when redrawing a coat of arms, it is important to keep the blazon in mind. More, it is important to know that there may be an official, however not a correct version of a coat of arms. Each rendition is simply a visualization of the blazon, but unlike a logo, multiple visualizations can be correct.
How To Digitalize a Coat of Arms
There are three ways to create a digital version of an existing, traditionally drawn coats of arms.
- Scanning the existing coat of arms. This is the easiest, albeit worst approach. A digitally scanned copy has all the drawbacks of the traditional arms (very detailed…
