Thursday, February 10, 2011

Substituting a Coat of Arms for a Logo?

There's an interesting article about a Romanian automaker which has (at least temporarily) placed a large coat of arms over the face of their building in downtown Bucharest.  The article, "Coat of Arms for Țiriac Auto?" can be found on-line at http://stefanliute.typepad.com/branding/2011/02/coat-of-arms-for-%C8%9Biriac-auto.html

The author of the article, Ştefan Liuţe, does a good job of parsing the blazon of this particular bit of heraldry, as well as pointing out a couple of potential problems with the depiction.  He does, however, seem to accept some of the various "meanings" that different authors have tried to apply to the colors and charges in a coat of arms.  (It is a fallacy that the colors and charges in heraldry have specific, widely-understood meanings.  More information on this point can be found in the rec.heraldry newsgroup mfaq [most frequently asked questions] on-line at: http://www.heraldica.org/faqs/mfaq).

And this article may point out an interesting reversal of the trend of corporations dropping coats of arms for a logo.  If Țiriac Auto is indeed going to be substituting a coat of arms for their currently used logo, that's a move I could certainly support!

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