Kitchen-Sink Heraldry

Well, that's what I'd call it, anyway, where someone tries to throw everything on a shield except for, and even then sometimes including, the kitchen sink.

It happened this way.  My wife, as she has some free time and cruises about the internet, is always looking out for my interests, and if she runs across an especially good, or especially egregious, coat of arms/logo, she'll forward the link to me and tell me I should check it out.  (And I do the same for her, if I happen to run across a particularly nice piece of fiber art or a really good quilt.)

So late yesterday she sent me a link, which I finally had the time to go check out this morning.  The website it led to (http://www.nanowrimo.org/) is for the National Novel Writing Month (November 1-30).  That's all well and good; encouraging writers and writing is something I can support.  However, what they had right at the top of their web page as their logo is an entirely different matter.

As I say, kitchen sink heraldry.  It's quartered arms. (Of course.  Everybody "knows" that in heraldry, all coats of arms are quartered.)  There's a coffee cup (too many late nights fighting writer's block?); a computer (the writer's current tool of choice); two pens crossed in saltire (a low-tech backup system?); and a huge stack of paper (either to write on, or to represent the finished manuscript.  Your choice).  All topped off with a horned Viking helm (because, as we all "know," the Norsemen were called "Vikings"* and wore horned helmets.**  (Either that or, since both these "facts" are fiction, it ties in with the fact that this is about novel, that is to say, fiction, writing.)

Anyway, aren't you glad now that my wife found this website with this really awful logo, so that I could share it with you?

* They weren't.  "Viking" was a verb; it was something they did, not something they were.
** They didn't.  Some had wings, but a horned helm could put you at a severe disadvantage in any kind of battle.