Style combination · Contrasts

European Heraldry × Ottoman Tughra

Both mark a sovereign's identity and authority, but heraldry does it with charges and tinctures on a shield and the tughra with the ruler's name alone; compare them to decide whether an identity should be pictured or written.

From the research on Ottoman Tughra & Dîvânî Chancery Calligraphy

Mix them and make something European Heraldry Ottoman Tughra

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from European Heraldry, their arrangement from Ottoman Tughra, the finish from European Heraldry. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

European Heraldry Ottoman Tughra & Dîvânî Chancery Calligraphy

Type from Ottoman Tughra: Brush & pen calligraphy
Type as image
Colour from European Heraldry: Flat fields
Primary triad
Form from European Heraldry: Stylised figuration
Emblems & badges

Ottoman Tughra avoids stylised figuration: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
Composition from Ottoman Tughra: Single focal point
Extreme scale contrast
Surface from European Heraldry: Flat

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Ottoman Tughra

Atlas

Cinzel, standing in for Celî dîvânî, the monumental form for panels and inscriptions, mastered by the leading dîvânî calligraphers such as Sâmi Efendi and Kâmil Akdik; after the 1928 alphabet reform it lived on in a few celî dîvânî panels by famous calligraphers of the last generation, and dîvânî is still taught in Cairo

Text · European Heraldry

The hereditary identifying devices of medieval Europe's knights and seals, codified into a rule-bound grammar still used by states, cities, churches, universities and families. A coat of arms is defined by its written blazon, not by a drawing: a few flat tinctures (two metals, five colours and the furs) that keep metal off metal and colour off colour, a shield divided by bold ordinaries, and stylised charges in fixed poses, redrawn by every age in its own idiom and combined by impalement and quartering.

Libre Caslon Text; European Heraldry used Gothic book and cursive hands naming the bearer above or beside each shield in medieval rolls of arms and armorials, as 'die coninc van denmarke' beside the Danish flag in the Gelre Armorial and Mottoes lettered on a scroll beneath the shield

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from European Heraldry, with a counter-accent from Ottoman Tughra. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

European Heraldry Ottoman Tughra & Dîvânî Chancery Calligraphy

#f4f1e8 ground · 36%
#141414 ink · 14%
#e8b923 accent · 18%
#2e4ea6 accent · 14%
#b5121b accent · 10%
#bf9a52 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f4f1e8;
  --ink: #141414;
  --accent-1: #e8b923;
  --accent-2: #2e4ea6;
  --accent-3: #b5121b;
  --accent-4: #bf9a52;
  --font-display: "Cinzel", serif;
  --font-text: "Libre Caslon Text", serif;
}

Use it with care

European Heraldry: A coat of arms belongs to a particular bearer, lineage or (in Polish heraldry) clan, not to everyone with a surname: in Scotland it can belong to only one person at a time and the Court of the Lord Lyon can fine those who usurp arms and have the offending items removed or destroyed, state arms are protected against unauthorised registration and use as trademarks under Article 6ter of the Paris Convention, and many European cities and universities protect their arms as trademarks. Design new arms by the rules of the tradition rather than copying a real family's, city's or state's arms for decoration or branding, and do not present invented arms as a family's historic coat of arms. Crusader and Templar shields and knights with crosses on their chests or shields have also become far-right insignia (Charlottesville 2017, the US Capitol 2021), and neo-Nazis use an eagle loosely based on German coats of arms, though not every eagle derives from it; check how a cross, an eagle or a crusading knight will read before using it, and avoid pairing them with militant or ethnic-nationalist themes.

Ottoman Tughra & Dîvânî Chancery Calligraphy: A tughra is the personal mark of one sovereign and spells his name with a prayer for victory: do not redraw a historical sultan's tughra as a brand logo, product stamp or decorative texture, do not present a new design as a historical one, and never fill the form with invented pseudo-Arabic. The calligraphy behind the tughra and Dîvânî, hüsn-i hat, is a living craft passed on through apprenticeship (UNESCO Representative List, 2021), so commission a hattat for a new tughra and have every word read by a fluent reader of Ottoman Turkish. The tughra is also a sign of Ottoman rule: where that rule is remembered as conquest, as in parts of the Balkans, Greece, Armenia and the Arab world, or is invoked by nationalist politics, it can read as a claim to that rule, so check how the audience will read it. The tughra form is also used for sacred texts, such as Qur'anic verses, hadith and the names of the founders of Sufi orders, and Popov showed a 'tughra of Allah' in Kazan; such compositions follow the parent tradition's rules: never crop, distort or mirror them, and keep them off floors, footwear and throwaway surfaces.

The two styles

An ornate coat of arms shows two golden stags supporting a shield with a green oak tree, blue waves, and three gold stars. A knight’s helmet and large star crown the shield, surrounded by green and gold foliage, a red patterned border, and a cream scroll reading “BRIGHTER LANDS.”

c. 1140–present · Western Europe, Central Europe, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Eastern Europe European Heraldry The hereditary identifying devices of medieval Europe's knights and seals, codified into a rule-bound grammar still used by states, cities, churches, universities and families. A coat of arms is defined by its written blazon, not by a drawing: a few flat tinctures (two metals, five colours and the furs) that keep metal off metal and colour off colour, a shield divided by bold ordinaries, and stylised charges in fixed poses, redrawn by every age in its own idiom and combined by impalement and quartering. c. 1324–present · Middle East & North Africa, Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, South Asia Ottoman Tughra & Dîvânî Chancery Calligraphy The Ottoman sultan's calligraphic monogram and the chancery hand written beneath it. From Orhan in 1324 each sultan had his own tughra, composed at his accession and redrawn by hand on every decree: his name and titles stacked at the base, three tall shafts, two nested loops sweeping left and arms reaching right. Struck on coins and carved over gates, it was at its grandest lettered in blue outlined in gold, its loops filled with scrolls and blossoms. Below it ran Dîvânî, a slanting, tightly packed hand. A counterpart of the European royal cypher: one owned mark carried across every medium.