Transformation of the Coat of Arms over time

Over the time, the style of coats of arms has changed. Even though coats of arm styles have changed, the language describing a coat of arms has essentially remained the same. Crucial for a coat of arms is the Blazon, which is the term for the description of the coat of arms.  The Blazon defines the elements that a coat of arms contains and details how these elements come together in what is called the full achievement. When an artist creates an image of the coat of arms, he has to make sure that all of the elements are correctly arranged.  In designing the mantling (the decorative scroll work around a shield), the heraldic artist has the freedom to choose from a wide variety of styles. This freedom also means the artist can decide how he designs an eagle, but he has to take strict care where and how in the coat of arms the items are to be placed. That said, the artist needs to follow very specific rules. Even with adherence to these rules, you can see how the style of the coat of arms has changed over the time in the example below.

With changes in technology, there have always been new opportunities to show coat of arms in printed works as true to original as possible. In the early issues of the “Allgemeinen Deutschen Wappenrolle,” the color Gold was shown as a hatching and in later issues as a simple yellow. Now we can show gold in a color which looks much more like gold and is recognizable as gold, even if it is a pseudo-color. Making a print with real gold color is possible, but extremely complex and expensive.

We always try our best to remain state of the art in the technical realization of the coat of arms. You can see this in the evolution of the “Allgemeine Deutsche Wappenrolle (ADW)”. Since we launched the first issue in 1978, the presentation of the coat of arms has been continuously improved.

In the first issue, the coat of arms were mostly in black and white with hatchings. Since then many things have changed.

In the following example, the colors were illustrated using yellow for gold and white instead of silver.

In the advancement, we started using processed colors. You achieve these colors by printing 4 colors at the same time, with different parts of  Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black.

Another Trend is not only to show the coat of arms and the blazon but also the historical family data. In the first issues, only a small part of all entries contained family data, but now almost 80% contain family information.

Nevertheless, we never stop looking for new possibilities to show the coat of arms even more accurately and beautifully. During the last few years, we have found a great possibility to achieve this goal by adding shadows in the pictures and so get a 3D effect. Colors and Elements become even more accentuated.

And the best part of these changes: Our customers are very excited!

In the future, we will continue improving the coat of arms as a symbol of family and family tradition, and we promise to remain state of the art in using the newest technical advances to improve.

In 2015, there will be another issue of the Allgemeine Deutsche Wappenrolle which will once more prove the outstanding quality of the Pro Heraldica works.

This post is also available in: German