Heraldry · Design & Consultation

Heraldry is an exact art.Everything on it has to be right.

We take on heraldic work, ecclesiastical and secular: the design of new coats of arms, and the correction and proper definition of existing ones.

We say exact deliberately. Arms are not an ornament applied to a document. They are a system — a blazon that describes them precisely enough for a stranger to draw them, a grammar of tinctures and positions, and a set of conventions that mean something. A charge in the wrong place is a different coat. A tassel too many is a claim to a rank. A tincture on a tincture stops the arms reading from across a room, which is the only distance that ever mattered.

What we aim at is not the elaborate version. It is the defined one: smooth, deliberate, and correct — drawn in the classic hand, in flat and traditional colour, with nothing modern or glossy about it.

Inquire about heraldic work Call (614) 906-8024

The parts of a coat, and the order in which they are decided. An armigerous shield is fixed by its field first: everything borne upon it has to read against that ground.

The work

New arms, arms put right, and the question of what may be borne.

New arms

Arms designed from the beginning — marshalled properly, blazoned in the correct order, and drawn so that someone else could reproduce them from the blazon alone. A personal coat, a family coat, the arms of a parish, a school, a sodality, a society, or a diocese.

Correction & definition

Existing arms put right. A device that has drifted, a shield crowded with charges that cancel each other, tinctures that break the rule of contrast, a tassel count that belongs to a rank the bearer does not hold, an emblazonment that was never actually drawn from a blazon. What is restored is not the picture but the logic underneath it.

III

Consultation

For those who have arms and want to know what they may lawfully bear, how a new charge may be added, how two coats are marshalled on marriage, or whether the emblazonment in front of them is right. Sometimes the honest answer is that the arms are correct and need nothing.

What is on a coat

Four decisions, made in order.

This is the order we work in, and the reason a correction is usually less about drawing and more about deciding. Nothing is put on a shield until the field is settled, and nothing is blazoned until every charge has a name.

AThe field: The ground of the shield, and the first thing named in a blazon. Its tincture governs everything set upon it — which is why the field is decided before a single charge is drawn.
BThe charges: What is borne on the field. A charge must be identifiable at a distance and in one colour, because arms were made to be recognised on a seal, a banner and a shield before they were ever framed.
CThe galero and tassels: Ecclesiastical. The hat and the number of its tassels declare the rank of the bearer, and the count is not decorative — fifteen a side for a cardinal, ten for a bishop, fewer for lesser prelates. Getting it wrong is a claim to an office.
DThe cross and the motto: The cross is borne behind the shield according to rank and is drawn with its own proportions. The motto sits in the scroll beneath, and the scroll is part of the composition, not a label appended to it.

The tinctures

Two metals, five colours, and two furs.

The rule of contrast holds everything together: never a colour on a colour, never a metal on a metal. It is not a preference. It is what lets arms be read, at a glance, from the back of a church.

OrGold
ArgentSilver
GulesRed
AzureBlue
VertGreen
PurpurePurple
SableBlack
ErmineWhite, black tails
VairBlue and white

How the work goes

The blazon first. The drawing last.

The question

What the arms are for, whose they are, and what is already borne. If there are existing arms, we want to see them, however poor the copy.

The blazon

The arms described in words, in the correct order and in the correct terms. This is the real work. If the blazon is right, the drawing is a formality.

III

The emblazonment

The arms drawn — flat, traditional colour, correct proportions, the external ornaments of the bearer’s actual rank and no more.

The check

We read the blazon back against the drawing, line by line, as a stranger would. Anything that does not survive being read cold gets redone.

For a person, a family, a parish, a diocese, a school, a society.

The work is the same whether the shield belongs to one person or to an institution: the charges have to mean something, the tinctures have to read, and the whole has to hold together when it is reduced to the size of a seal. Everything we send is drawn for the purpose it is actually going to serve — a document, an engraving, a banner, a seal, a gift.

We do not discuss a client’s arms in public, and no one else’s work is shown here. What we would be making is yours, and it stays yours.

Heraldry inquiry

Tell us what the work is for.

Three things are enough to begin: what the work is for, whose arms they are, and how to reach you. Everything else we will ask.

Before you write

If you have existing arms: Send the best image you have, even a phone photograph of a printed page. We can work from a poor copy; we cannot work from none.
The blazon: If the arms have ever been formally granted, the blazon is the authority and everything is checked against it. If they have not, we write one.
Ecclesiastical arms: The external ornaments — galero, tassels, cross — follow the office the bearer actually holds. We ask, and we hold to the answer rather than flattering it.
Prefer to talk: Call or text (614) 906-8024. If there is a date the arms are needed by, that is the fastest way to begin.
Consultation: Offered without charge. If what you have is already correct, we will say so, and that is the whole of the answer.

Heraldry is offered alongside the collection rather than apart from it. Both are the same hand, and both begin with the same question: what is this for, and who is it for?