My dream for this project is that we can both have crests that really represent us as families and as individuals, and I’d like to create a set of guidelines that allows all of the crests, family colors, etc., follow a common theme in how they are presented and catalogued. At the moment, I have only decided on the cresting system, but I think we may be able to expand to family colors or flags. I’m open to suggestions so please contact me (most easily on Facebook) if you have any ideas.
I am a graphic designer (it’s the family business), so I can do some if not all of a crest if you don’t have any artistic talents. But more importantly, I want to discuss what the Spinney crest should encompass and the three levels of crests I’ve come up with (pictures will follow).
The crest from the web is listed at the top of the page.... Unfortunately, the severely greedy on the internet place one of several spellings in the name banner below the crest and try to make you pay for it. DO NOT pay for this. It’s just a principle thing. And besides, this whole project is based on the idea that we may not be descendants of this crest anyway. However, if you can verify your genealogy back to this crest, I’d definitely promote using it.
But back to the level of crests:
The Spinney – The primary Spinney crest. The crest of the Spinney name and of all Spinneys regardless of the origin of your Spinneyness.
NOTE: I am fully encouraging the creative use and overuse of Spinney as a word to describe just about anything (i.e., A “spinneyism” would be different than a “Spinneyism”, but both would refer to something that is an attribute of many Spinneys. Maybe an uppercase Spinneyism is if a Spinney is actually committing the Spinneyism and the lower case could refer to a non-Spinney who commits a Spinneyism, haha.)
Spinney Families – This would of course be a crest that represents your immediate family (mom, dad, children). It should develop out of the parent’s crest reusing colors or a particular element that links a particular family crest to that of the parents.
Spinneys – These are individual crests. This is most appropriate to heraldry because a coat-of-arms was originally only used by an individual knight.
What I really hope to see is something that connects Family Crests generation by generation. If you are creating your grandparent’s crest and you use red and white, you might use red or white somewhere in your family’s crest to signify that connection. I would think this logic would also carry on to the individual crests. If your family colors or crest uses only the color green, it would seem logical to have green somewhere in each of the siblings’ crests.
The reason for this is simple. Crests are about symbolism and what we want to create is something that is noble enough to literally be a crest that you may use someday or even pass down to your children. We are establishing a link that hopefully can literally be carried on into the future. With that in mind, I’m sure a set of rules of what is and isn’t acceptable will develop as submissions come in and ideas are discussed.
Once I finish an idea I have for the Primary Spinney crest, I will post it and ask for feedback. I will also post my family crest, that of my grandfather (to show the family connection) and my individual crest. I will describe and explain my use of symbolism so everyone can get an idea of where this whole thing is going.
IN OTHER NEWS:
If there is anyone out there who wants to start a forum that we can link to the block that would be awesome. Then concept art can be posted and discussions can take place more easily instead of me just showing everyone what pops up in my inbox.
The same request goes out to any Spinney web designers or hosters. I’m about to go back to school and I just don’t have the time to go about running a web site on top of designing and running this blog.
FINALLY…
If we can get a web site up I’d like to also work on our families’ genealogies. We’re young and it’s a good idea to get as much of this information before all of our older relatives pass away. You’ll be surprised when your great aunt comes up with a bunch of birth certificates hidden in the attic, I promise. Plus, we’re going to find connections. We’re going to find relatives, and we’re going to put together a puzzle that hasn’t yet been cracked.
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