Heraldry is an art as well as a science. The act of producing a heraldic device as practiced in the Society for Creative Anachronism is often left solely to the person whose persona said device is for, and is then submitted for approval by the College of Heralds only after an investment of time and, hopefully, emotion has been made. This can lead to bad feelings, however unintentionally they may arise.
Heraldry for the masses is an enormous undertaking. It is courageous for a not-for-profit group to make such an valiant attempt at providing so much to so many for so little. The local herald, or whomever
it is left to develop a heraldic device, must undertake to be both researcher, soul searcher and graphic designer. All this for free! It should therefore be no surprise that many revisions may be needed once a device is submitted, and small wonder why Society heraldry is less like the medieval heraldry we seek to honor than we might wish it to be.
A device must, of course, meet all the rules of heraldry, and SCA heraldry; but, more important than this a device should reflect the person [persona] who holds that device.
We must remember heraldry is not a drawing used only on a submission form, but a symbol representing an individual to a largely non-literate public. It is meant to be used on clothing, cups, banners and sundry personal belongings. Looking upon a person's heraldry we should be able to say, yes, this reflects upon his persona.
In its simplest form this can be accomplished by gearing our thinking to: Let's use red and black, because the person likes those colors and frequently dresses in them.
Taking a cue from history, a device should reflect an important incident in a person's life, some concept which is important to that person or might even utilize a pun on their name, looks, or place of origin. Hugh the Forester, therefore, might have an axe cutting a tree [hew], he might have the sun in splendor over a green field [Hugh being derived from germanic roots referencing
"bright"]. To take another tact, he might use say, a cup tipped over, if he spilled a drink over his lady at his first event, and so on. Too little of this is seen in SCA heraldry. It is my belief that this is done by oversight, and perhaps in a zealousness to submit something before thinking it out.
If a local herald is stumped for an idea, then he or she should correspond with others in order to brainstorm. If there is no one locally capable of drawing the device as it should look, wait until the next major event you attend to see if someone might not be capable of an assist. Or ask if your local high school or college art teacher might not be amenable to allowing you the use of the school's pant-o-graph [a useful machine which can reproduce drawing to
scale even in the hands of the unskilled.]
Seek to submit with an eye toward excellence rather than mere acceptability. Especially, be certain that the device relates to the individual whose submission it is; this aspect can neither be achieved nor corrected by others, since they are not likely to be as familiar with the subject. It is only by discussing the
heraldry of the persona, herald and applicant together, that this higher quality can be achieved.
This very personal aspect of heraldry can not be mandated by the college, because it is such an elusive concept. A herald can look at a device and say, "well, it doesn't look period" and have more than enough difficulty in explaining the why of that ruling. Heralds really don't need, and certainly don't look for extra reasons to turn away submissions.
It is only by gaining a better awareness of this missing element in the devices which we submit that we can elevate the virtuosity of the art, and the quintessence of the science of the heraldry of the current middle ages.