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Handling Heraldry

Hello everybody!

Today’s post is going to a quick look into pictographs with a medieval twist. But first, what is a pictograph?

A pictograph is simply any sort of image or illustration that is meant to represent a place, thing or action in the most simplest way possible. So seeing two stick figures along side each other can represent bathrooms, or a deer on a street sign can indicate to watch out for deer. I am personally instructed the moment in one of my design classes to create six pictographs that follow a theme, half being stationary and half representing motion or an action. The one I’m about to show you here is one of my motion pictographs with the theme of heraldry, heraldry being the coat of arms that represents a city or nation like England with its lion or Wales with its Dragon. This one is of Warsaw, Poland.

Here is the reference that I’m using as reference for my design. The seal is supposedly based on a Melusine (a traditional representation of fresh water with what we now see as a mermaid) that represents the Vistula river.
Simplification is key. I was using a grid to help with this simplification but some minor adjustments needed to be made for the sake of the gesture, using the lines is a simple way of showing some motion, so what I had done was play around with her forearm like an action figure to show her using the sword or what it may look like with some more animation.

Right now I’ve created a solid foundation and pretty much wrapped up my stationary pictographs but I would say I might return to these at a later point in time for a side project. Working on these has been a great way to think more mathematically about logos. In future, maybe I could take it a step further and incorporate a grid more in my logos.

Hope you all enjoyed!

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