Heraldic shields template

Don't have a motto? Be creative! Select a background for your crest. Choose a shield based on the family characteristics offered. Choose an icon based on the family characteristics offered. Enjoy your new family crest! Right click on your mouse to save your new family crest. You may also decide to draw your own unique devices on your shield. To follow heraldic convention, don't place two coloured objects on top of each other in your design. This 'rule', in place since medieval times, helped to ensure that heraldic designs used on the shield, banner, or surcoat could be easily distinguished at a distance.

A black Unicorn on a gold shield is correct a colour is on a metal , while a black Unicorn on a blue shield wouldn't meet this rule because two colours are against each other. Use the metals, gold Or and silver Argent , to help your design comply with this ancient guideline. Colours and certain patterns furs used in heraldry are called tinctures. Place your mouse over the shields below to reveal the heraldic name for each tincture. The heraldic description of a coat of arms is called the blazon, and the tinctures are used to describe how the arms are coloured or patterned with fur.

Bart's Queen's Beasts. Heraldry 4 Kids - Design your own shield 1. Design Your Own Shield on your computer. This Knight's shield may offer protection from a fire-breathing dragon, but it's not very colourful or heraldic. Members Roll of Arms. Heraldry Proficiency Program. Society Forums. A Coat of Arms has historically referred to the full 'Achievement', meaning the shield, side-ribbons mantle , the helmet, and the crest above it.

However this distinction has been lost over the centuries and today it is quite common for people to refer to the shield as the 'family crest' or 'coat of arms' as one and the same thing. It is not uncommon for words and phrases to have their meaning altered over time depending on their usage. New words and phrases are created all the time while existing words and phrases have their meanings altered. Simply put, if enough people regard a 'family crest' and a 'coat of arms' as the same thing then they are the same thing.

Now there are some with a different viewpoint who would not be at all happy with this assertion and would be contemptuous of any attempt to suggest that a Family Crest and a Coat of Arms are the same thing, despite the vast majority of people regarding them as the same. Our view is that people themselves you and me and everyone else decide on the actual meaning of a word of phrase and we do so by our usage.

Aware as we are of the historical difference between a Crest and a Coat of Arms we have no problem regarding them as being the same thing. Because that is the meaning the vast majority of people have assigned to them and for centuries.

The metamorphosis of words and phrases is not something that is confined to Heraldry. No less than the Oxford Dictionary has changed the definition of the word 'literally' to include its use as an emphasis rather than its actual original meaning.

So the next time you hear someone say 'We were literally killing ourselves laughing' there is no need to correct them, or worry that they have died. They are not literally dead. The word 'cute' originally meant 'keenly perceptive and shrewd', now it means 'pretty' or 'charming'. The word 'nice' originally meant 'ignorant'.