Badges From Two Different Traditions

Parked outside Dumfries House while we were visiting there was a passenger van emblazoned with two different badges.

One of the two badges was, naturally enough, that of Dumfries House:

consisting of a type of breast star often used by knightly orders (here, a style often seen on breast stars of the Order of the Thistle), with the initials D and H (for Dumfries House, obviously) and surmounted in chief by a very exuberant thistle (hello, Scotland).

The other badge was that of Al-Maktoum College of Dundee:

The van being, as it clearly notes below the College badge:

Sponsored by

Al-Maktoum College of Higher Education

The badge is an interesting, somewhat modernized take on traditional Islamic design, and consists of a voided octagon interlaced with a series of eight loops, pointed and arranged to create an eight-pointed star in the center.

Both badges were interesting, especially when juxtaposed onto a single item (the van) as they were.