How to Design Your Own Coat of Arms for Free
Throughout the middle ages noble families used coats of arms to communicate their lineage and identity. These coats were based on heraldry, which was a set of rules that laid out what could be used in a coat of arms and how the elements could be used. You don't need to follow all of the ancient rules to make your own coat of arms, but using a theme as a guide can be a fun challenge and will make your coat of arms look more authentic.
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Instructions
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Draw a shield to serve as a frame for your coat of arms. Your shield can be any shape. The arched shield is normally used, but you can use a square shield as well.
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Decide how many fields your coat of arms will have. A field is a panel within your shield that features a charge, or a design element. Many coats of arms had just one field, but some were divided into two, three or four fields. This often occurred when families intermarried and wanted to represent both lineages.
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Pick a charge. Your charge is a central design element, usually an object or animal. You don't have to use just one. You may include several as long as they are organized in a pattern (diagonally, in a row, etc.). Authentic medieval charges included some strange creatures unique to heraldry. Search online to find pictures and information about medieval charges.
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Decide on an ordinary to use on your coat of arms and draw it in. An ordinary is a background pattern. Each field should have a different ordinary. Ordinaries include patterns such as stripes, chevrons, checkers, crosses, etc. You do not need to include one, but it can make your coat of arms look striking.
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Pick a color scheme for your coat of arms. Real coats of arms used a limited but bold palette of colors so that a coat of arms could be easily recognized from a distance. Common colors include green, blue, red, brown, black, white, yellow, purple, orange and maroon. Yellow and white are technically gold and silver. There's a hard rule in heraldry that these two colors may never touch. So, for example, you cannot have a yellow (gold) lion on a white (silver) background.
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Draw supporters on either side of the shield. Supporters are often beasts rearing on their hind legs that appear to be holding the shield.
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Draw a small helmet on top of the shield. Add a crest on top of the helmet. A crest is much like a charge and is usually an animal head, a crown or the like.
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Draw a floating scroll above the shield. Write your personal or family motto in it. Historically, this was done in Latin, but you can do it in English if translating it is too difficult.
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- Photo Credit Coat of Arms image by Arne Bramsen from Fotolia.com
