How to Design Your Own Family Crest

• 1). Log on to any of the websites listed in the resources section or any other websites that deal with designing your family crest and study the elements and patterns that are part of the identification marks of a family crest. Sketch the outline of your shield on a sketch pad using a pencil and then outline the shield with a black marker when you get the image exactly the way you want it to look.
  
  
• 2). Choose the basic design that will become the foundation of your coat of arms and use a pencil to lay it out on your sketch pad. Choose the base colors that will represent your family crest. Colors should be contrasting, such as a primary color (red, yellow or blue, against white or a metal color like gold or silver). Lightly label the empty spaces with the name of the color you will use to fill in each section when the entire crest is laid out. This will prevent you from overlapping different colors on the shield.
  
  
• 3). Choose the geometric patterns and shapes that will represent you and your family and sketch them out on your sketch pad. Popular patterns for your shield could be things like a solid background, a color banner on top with a lower solid metal color, a shield divided into thirds or a quarter shield. Use any of these, or a design of your own. Just remember to use good composition and do not overload your crest. Again, lightly label the empty space of your symbols with the name of the color that you will fill the shape in with later. Erase any lines that are overlapping your symbols to give you a clear picture of your family crest.
  
  
• 4). Choose the animals or images that will symbolize you or your family members on your coat of arms and sketch them. Images should be something that is related to your family. Consider a symbol that represents a family trade like a mason's trowel or a fireman's helmet. Typical images that were used in the past were things like lions, eagles, ships, crowns, anchors and swords. Again, once you sketch your images, erase any overlapping lines and label the colors in your images.
  
  
• 5). Review your completed sketch and when you are satisfied, fill in the colors of your images on your family crest with colored markers. You now have a family crest to call your own.