Style combination · Pairs well

European Heraldry × Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

The Emperor's and Empress's eagle shields and the maker's escutcheon on the 2 of Coupes come from armory; pair heraldic tinctures and charges with a tarot figure for a crest-like card or label.

From the research on Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

Mix them and make something European Heraldry Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from European Heraldry, their arrangement from Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards, the finish from Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards. 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 Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

Type from Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards: All caps
Hand-lettering
Colour from European Heraldry: Flat fields
Primary triad
Form from European Heraldry: Stylised figuration
Emblems & badges
Composition from Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards: Framed panels
Single focal point
Surface from Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards: Carved line
Misregistration & overprint

The type

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

Display · Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

Square

Cinzel, standing in for Roman capitals cut into the woodblock with the picture, in a band at the foot of each trump and court card, often with interpuncts and the copyists' spellings ('LE CHARIOR' and 'LA PANCES' on Dodal's cards, 'LE BATELEVR' with V for U)

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 Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

European Heraldry Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

#f4f1e8 ground · 36%
#141414 ink · 14%
#e8b923 accent · 18%
#b5121b accent · 14%
#1c3f94 accent · 10%
#1d7a3a accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f4f1e8;
  --ink: #141414;
  --accent-1: #e8b923;
  --accent-2: #b5121b;
  --accent-3: #1c3f94;
  --accent-4: #1d7a3a;
  --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.

Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards: Trace decks cut before 1800 (Noblet, Dodal and Conver in the BnF; Dodal cards and early 19th-century Conver printings at the Met) rather than recent redrawings such as Grimaud's 1930 'Ancien Tarot de Marseille' or the 1998 Camoin–Jodorowsky restoration, which are modern works; and do not present the occultists' story of an Egyptian origin, launched by Court de Gébelin in 1781, as history: the pattern descends from Milanese tarot and was made for the card game of tarot, which French and Swiss players used it for until the early 20th century.