Many faires / festivals and reenactment groups are very strict on following Heraldry rules. I have had a few customers ask me about Heraldic Law, so I decided to put together some guidelines on designing your own device.
Glossary:
Device: A heraldic design used to identify an individual.
Tincture: Refers to any colour, metal, or fur.
Field: The background of the shield.
Charge: The object placed on the field.
Basic Heraldic Rules:
There are five colors: Blue, Red, Purple, Black and Green.
There are two metals: Silver (which is depicted by white) and Gold (which is depicted by yellow). (Most faires / festivals and reenactment groups prefer that you use White and/or Yellow in place of metallic fabric.)
There are two basic fur types: of which there are tincture variations:
Ermine fur (metals with colour spots & colours with metal spots)
Vair fur (bell shaped quadrants composed of equal parts color and metal).
The basic rule of heraldic design is: When designing a device DO NOT place a colour on a colour or a metal on a metal, and DO NOT put a fur whose major background tincture is a metal on a metal and do not put a fur whose major background tincture is a colour on a colour.
Field:
The field can be on solid colour or it may be divided into segments. The segments can lie next to each other, but not on top of one another. Either straight or complex (follow a pattern) lines can be used to separate the field segments.
Charges:Charges are the objects that lay on top of the field. There are four types of charges: ordinaries, geometric shapes, creatures, and items/artifacts.
Ordinaries are the most common types of charges used in heraldry. These are wide bands or sections of colours/metals, most of which can have other charges placed upon them.
Geometric shapes are a second key type of charges utilized in heraldry.
Creatures There are three categories of creatures: beasts (actual animals such as boars, bears, bulls, birds, wolves, coneys, deer, fish, etc), monsters (mythological critters such as unicorns, dragons, wyverns, griffins,
sea-beasts, etc) and humanoids (people, sea-folk, angels, etc).
These creatures are placed on the shield in specific, stylized positions.
Items and artifacts includes, but is not limited to, objects such as
weapons, armour, tools, musical instruments, clothing, towers, suns, crosses, flowers, ships, etc.
Tips to help follow the rules:
Try to use only 2 or 3 different tinctures.
Try to use only 2 different types of charges/objects if possible.
Try to give a balance to the design.
Do not use pale, pastel, or neon colours.
