Coats of Arms and Flags

(Castles and Yachts NOT included)
This design was drawn for a family who have a summer home in Minnesota.

Each element in the device represents the members of the family and what activities they engage in while on vacation.

These were printed on tee shirts as souvenir gifts to friends and relatives who visited them at the lake.
The design at right shows the passtimes of an individual displayed on his fanciful heraldic shield.
Here's one I designed for a calligrapher friend. Rather than the usual supporter of a lion rampant dexter, we have an appropriate animal: a squid, making sure the calligrapher's pen never runs dry.
Lots of arms on this one, too. This coat of arms has arms of coats as a decorative device.
When I design things for other folks I think of what I might do for myself.

The result you see at left.

Half drawn in pencil, showing how I designed it, and half finished in ink.
What use are they?

Good question. They make great book-plates, gifts, and the perfect accessory to your new McMansion.
FLAG DESIGNS

Made to Order
Flags are sometimes designed for clients with new homes, estates and yachts...but no new countries yet!

This one for a man with two homes. The city home "Rope's End" and the summer place "Four Winds" were combined on one square flag which he would hoist whenever he was "at home" to friends and family.
Another flag was to be a Christmas gift from a client to her yachtsman husband. I suggested that we invite him to help us with the design, so I made a gift certificate for her to wrap: a designer's blueprint shown above.

The question mark was soon replaced with the stylized bird head for the motor-launch "Raven" which cruises out of Blue Hill, Maine. I thought the small dinghy used to row out to the anchored yacht should be named "Nevermore."
Come to think of it, perhaps I have designed a flag for a country. It almost seems as if you've departed the USA when you step across these clients' threshold!

Strong personalities, wild parties and good food and drink mix together to make a visit to Mira and Barbaros' house an exotic treat!

As an anniversary present Mira asked that I design a flag to give to her husband to fly above their new home.

I based it on a combination of the flags of the countries of their birth and heritage, Russia, Turkey and Canada.

At the top was my favorite along with the numerous suggested variants. They picked the top one as well.
As you probably would guess, when designing I simply will not leave anything up to chance. Flags, especially, seem to require a well-planned geometry. The "personal flag" flown on the yacht of a client is a case in point. It is based on the flag of his father as well as the local yacht club pennant shown above.

The result is a stylized landscape as were the "source" flags, yet the angles and colors work better, I think. The distant mountain is Blue (Blue Hill, Maine), the distinctive coastline of the client's land is Green and the water reflecting the sky is (the same color) White.

The angles are not "random" as the originals, but parallel to eachother or to the cut of the inseam of the notch. The White color shapes, too, are meant to refer to the two standard shapes of these yaching flags: the single pointed or the double-tailed burgee.
Every year I am lucky enough to be invited to a tiny Cape House for a long weekend away from the daily grind. My Hostess's initials are seen in the flag I designed for her to fly at the beach. The design of the flag is meant to suggest the relaxing "mood alteration" that happens with the warm wind and crashing waves and numerous gin-and-tonics. A rigid straight line bounces back as a slightly curved one, which bounces back again as a double curve, then finally flutters off in gay abandon.

Click on the links below to navigate this site.

Back to the Main Index

What's New

Pricing Guide

Contact Pier