About Crest Lantern
A small workshop for heraldry fans, writers, teachers and anyone who wants a shield of their own to play with.
What it is
Crest Lantern has four tools. The coat of arms designer builds arms from a shield, a field, an ordinary and charges, and writes the blazon as you go. The monogram maker lays out initials, the motto banner maker sets a motto on a ribbon, and the glossary explains the words.
How it works
Everything runs in your browser. Your designs are drawn on your device and kept in your browser's local storage; nothing you type is uploaded. The charges and frames are drawn for this site, and the lettering comes from the open-licensed Almendra and Noto Serif fonts, turned into outlines so downloads look the same everywhere. Once a page has loaded it keeps working without a connection. There are no accounts, cookies or ads.
What it is not
Crest Lantern is not a heraldic authority. A design made here is not a grant of arms or a registered coat of arms, and there is no coat of arms belonging to a surname to look up. Official arms come from bodies such as the College of Arms and the Court of the Lord Lyon. Before using a design as a real emblem, for a club or business say, check that it does not copy someone else's arms or trade mark.
Check our working
The blazon rules, tincture names and glossary follow A. C. Fox-Davies, A Complete Guide to Heraldry (1909), and James Parker, A Glossary of Terms Used in Heraldry (1894), both free to read online and linked from the tool pages.