Following up Catholic heraldry from Mobile, Alabama, here’s another of those depressing instances where a fine heraldic coat of arms has been almost supplanted by a logo—and not even a non-heraldic logo. I can understand it if a college wants to be "modern" and adopts a non-heraldic logo for that purpose; I like it better if they simply come up with a modern way of emblazoning their heraldic arms. Quasi-heraldic logos I don’t get.
Coat of arms/seal:
http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeohzt4/heraldry/SpringHill.PNG
Per pale Argent and Or a chevron engrailed Purpure between three fountains and on a chief Purpure three fleurs-de-lis Argent. (I’ve never seen it explained this way, but I’ve always assumed the chevron is a hill surrounded by three springs.)
Logo:
http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeohzt4/heraldry/SpringHillLogo.PNG
As is usual in these cases, the "seal" is restricted to official uses, e.g., as a physical seal on diplomas, while the logo is the principal public identity of the institution.
Sad.
Sad perhaps—honest folk may differ, even Jesuits—but we’ve seen far worse.
Playing devil’s advocate—if I can use that term in this context!—the "logo" is actually an alternate coat of arms; and even as such (do you see this coming?) we’ve seen far worse. While I’m not a fan of lettering as a charge, certain standardized religious monograms etc. are common in ecclesiastical arms, so the sinister chief (!!) would seem IMO less than chiefly sinister. The wavy pattern in dexter chief is a bit strange, but again we’ve seen etc. Ditto the overall visual effect—neither heavenly nor hellish, merely mundane.
But I wouldn’t put it out an an exemplar.
It’s really a shame. In the hatched version, it’s difficult to realize what a nice looking arms it is - dominated by purpure, or and argent. I wonder if someone seeing the hatched, black and white version didn’t realize what they had and requisitioned an arms in "color," and asked the artist to "modernize" it while they were at it.
Good point—hatching can create the impression of extra busy-ness, & the more complex the arms the messier the hatching makes it look—even if in color it would look quite nice!
A color version from clip art and odds and ends:
Ugh. Even bad, honest heraldry is better than some combination of logo and arms.
The arms in color are decent enough. The only drawback (and I confess to reaching somewhat, here) is that roundels in the 2-1 arrangement tend to look like a face. This is especially so when the one in base is drawn slightly larger, as in the hatched version, but not Mr. McMillan’s.
I disagree strongly that the original arms are bad in any way. I think this is an excellent, very classic design.
Ditto to Joe’s comment.
Yeah, I have to say I have no problem at all with these arms. A chevron between three objects is extremely common, and roundels are often used. I can’t imagine restricting them on the possibility that they may make a shield resemble a face.
Joseph McMillan;80516 wrote:
I disagree strongly that the original arms are bad in any way. I think this is an excellent, very classic design.
I have to agree as well. I usually don’t prefer purple in achievements, but I like its use here.
De gustibus etc. In color, they IMO look nice, if a little busier than I might like. The hatched version looked waaaay too busy for my taste.
I don’t think the arms are bad heraldry, even with my tendency to see faces in 2-1 arrangements.
I meant that it’s hard to imagine something worse than the arms-logo mash-up.
