The latest development in a long-running story, yesterday the Cabinet Office announced the rollout of a new rendering of the British royal arms, based on an illustration by Timothy Noad, for use by HM Government, including in all departmental logos on the website. It will presumably also appear in the letterheads of governmental paper publications, but of course the appearance of those example will be less instantaneous.

The most obvious, and important, change is of course the change from St Edward’s Crown to the Tudor Crown, about which I have written before. The crown is also now depicted much larger relative to the other elements. The lion and unicorn supporters have also been redrawn in a much more chunky, angular style than in the old version.

The escutcheon is restored to a more traditional heater shield shape, poking out in front of the Garter circlet, whereas the old depiction had it as a fully-enclosed cartouche. The circlet itself has been enlarged and the motto typed in a serif font as well as having the colours inverted – it now matches the shield, supporters and crown by having the field depicted in negative while the charges and outlines are positive. The fleur-de-list at the end of the strap is gone.The motto scroll is now much flatter, but anomalously retains the old font and colour scheme.

Comparing the two overall, I would say that the new version looks better as an example of heraldic art due to the shield itself no longer being denied its due prominence, but the old version may work better as a corporate logo due to its stronger outline, especially when shrunk for low resolutions.

In other heraldic news, The Heraldry Society recently released a digital upload of 244 pages from Volume 6 of The Coat of Arms, and I have discovered the Fellowship of the White Shield, whose blog currently has nine articles on the subject. I will not be short of reading material in the foreseeable future.