Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-01-26

finally drawn up an exquisitely tinted
copy was made by q noted New York
artist and sent to the islands with the
compliments Of the State Department.
ION approval" The natives were pleased,
but recently they decided to abandon
Uncle Sans design and go back to the
old shield of San Juan.
The Philippine coat-of-arms now in use,
was designed by Mr.. Hunt at the spe-
cifc request of President Taft, then gov
ernor of the islands, and the seal of the
Department of Commerce and Labor was
designated by him at the request of Sec
rotary Cortelyou. the first head of that
department.
The new coat-of-arms of the Panama
canal zone was designed by him at the
request of the Panama commission, all
OF the requests. of course, being backed
up by Congress and the President
The coats-of-arms flags and seals that
extreme in their simplicity. Any child
could draw them. Simplicity, indeed. ac-
cording to the governmental coat-of-arms
maker. is the one and just about the only
served.
There are hundreds and thousands of
heraldric laws" said he. ''but If you ex-
pect to design good coat-of-arms, the
thing to do is to study those laws-and
then forget them. All except one are
more honored in the breach than in the
observance. The exception is the law of
simplicity
It's easy to see why this is so. A
coat-of-arms is a thing for daily use 1t
is to be painted on wood, carved in stone.
embroidered on flags, hammered into
brass. and reproduced in a hundred other
ways Some Of the workmen who do
that reproducing may be adept but most
of them will not. The seal must be so
simple that any one can reproduce it.
~ Is this very simplicity. too. that
makes the work 80 hard. One could cas-
lily design beautiful shield, were he al
lowed to put lot Of fine detail into the
work. But II one wanted to get a copy of
such shield, he'd probably have to call
In skilled artist to make it.
Inen again the question Of embossing
comes IN The imprint of a shield, when
1t goes on paper. must be raised. Now
suppose You drew up q shield containing
a regular portrait Of a man, with his face
carefully shaded. and the buttonholes in
his coat drawn to nicely. How are you
going to raise that shading on paper
particularly when the stamp used in af-
fixing the ordinary shield irnprnts moth
ing but the outlines of the design.
"Once, when I was designing a coat-of-
arms / needed a picture Of a prairie to
carry out the symbolism. 1t was easy
enough to draw or paint a picture Of a
steel seal. without any ink. and stamp
one into plain white paper. So I had to
find something else.
Next to simplicity in designing a coat
of-arms the thing to remember is to make
your figures heraldic. BY this / mean
making the figures not as they are in real
life, but drawn along rough lines that
stand out boldly and with strength Take
lion, for instance. 1t would be pretty
hard work. II not altogether impossible to
make a seal that would imprint a perfect
lion. showing the proper shading, etc.
Even If you could do so the result would
not be particularly effective. 1t might be
art. but 1t wouldn't be heraldry.
IF you have your lion heraldic, how
feet. with front paws extended straight
out, and long curling tongue hanging
out of a mouth wide open. head thrown
far back. and the whole drawn in bold,
block-hke outline-then you have a figure
that is imposing, one that stands out, one