I Know Nothing About Heraldry, But ...

How many times I have seen a thread on-line, for example, in Reddit/heraldry, that begins with a statement along the lines of: "I don't know anything about heraldry, but I have made this design on a shield." And they attach a drawing whose only relationship to actual heraldry is that there is, in fact, an identifiable shield of some kind in it.

For example, an actual post header from July 2025: "WIP but I know absolutely nothing about heraldry", followed by "Literally just my doodles in class but I really like thus design aesthetically." The attached design was a round-bottom shield, quartered but with the fess line a little abased, with two plain quarters and completely different types and numbers of charges in the other two, with an oddly-designed coronet the full width of the shield atop it, and a snake-wrapped sword overlying everything to chief and to base,

Another example: "Next iteration of personal CoA/Achievement." My blazon would be: Azure on a chevron enhanced vert fimbriated between two starlings and [a concoction] argent three peach blossoms proper/pink. The "concoction" is composed of several elements: crossed knitting needles, four pen nibs, four diyas (small Indian oil lamps), and a chakra.

Everything in the design, of course, is full of deep and personal meaning for the designer. But is it identifiable as heraldry? Are the elements identifiable, as heraldry or anything else?

And then there's this one: "I made this [coat of arms for the Kingdom of America] for an Alternate History story I thought this would be the best place to post it. It's certainly not the best but I worked hard on it."

The arms consist of a blue shield charged with a brown eagle proper charged on the breast with the coat of arms of Washington, all within a mantle azure lined ermine, surmounted by the coronet of an English Earl, and with the arms or seals of the thirteen original colonies encircling the whole.

Someone did ask:

Q: If these are the arms of a kingdom, why does it have the coronet of a British earl rather than a king's crown on top?

A: I don’t know much about heraldry. I just used what I thought looked cool I will continue researching, and I'll make something better.

"I don't know much about heraldry" indeed.

I generally do not get involved in responding to such posts. It's not good for my equanimity. Or my gall bladder.

And as someone once noted some years ago: "It is actually very easy to come up with ugly designs if one just takes a pen and paper and starts drawing, with no prior knowledge of heraldry."

I have sometimes made the analogy of someone who has seen (not studied, but seen) a few examples of  art and has decided they want to paint something in the style of, say, Art Deco, and then produce something that could have been painted by one of the Pre-Raphaelites. Or has created something that they say is in the style of a Mughal painting.

This, to me, these examples of "heraldry" is pretty much the same thing.

I know, I sound a bit critical here. And another reason that I try not to respond to such posts is because I don't want to discourage someone from their new but not entirely formed interest in the field of heraldry. But, really, please, go out and look at some coats of arms. They're easy enough to find on the internet. And just by looking at them, you will start to learn a little about how coats of arms are designed. Because it's not just "I really like thus design aesthetically" or "I just used what I thought looked cool."

Like any other artistic style, there are some rules, often unwritten, about what makes a work Art Nouveau or Impressionistic or even Pointillist. Heraldry, for all of its variation by time and place, is the same way.

So please, do just a little looking around before you begin designing even fantasy arms for something. It will be worth it to you.

Plus, it will mean that I can reduce my dosage of Pepto-Bismol.