 Hi everyone! It's Josh, teen services librarian at the Billy Jean King Main Library, reporting from the information superhighway. I'm online today. This one's going to be a bit of a different workshop than we've seen previously. And today we're working on making our very own family coat of arms or personal coat of arms. So I'm going to show you some ways to design your own crest or coat of arms while drawing inspiration from your own life. And by the way, if you still haven't signed up for SRP, what are you doing? It's not too late though. You can still sign up. You go to longbeach.beanstack.org. And you can catch up on previous week's prizes, enter for the raffle to win some really cool subscription boxes. And if you're on top of things and you're already signed up, don't forget to enter this week's code in the activities tab of your Beanstack account. The code for this week is family. Now let's get to making. So a little bit of background. Heraldry, or the science and art that deals with the use, display, and regulation of symbols used to identify individuals, armies, institutions, and corporations. Basically for the purposes of this video, they're people who study and design shields or coats of arms. And you might associate a coat of arms with medieval Europe, and you wouldn't be wrong, but they weren't the only ones identifying families through symbols. In the high-end period of Japan, noble families used a series of symbols to represent themselves. And these family crests were known as Manchaux. It's also prevalent in Native American tribes of the Pacific Northwest. They used totem poles to do a similar thing with symbols to represent a family. However, we don't have to be of noble birth or symbol scientists to create our own family crests. There are a lot of different approaches to designing your crest or coat of arms. You can go traditional and use symbols and elements used in European crests, or use modern symbols. It's completely up to you. I'm going to show you the process that I went through to create my own, but you can definitely approach it however you'd like. Since I'm not really good with pen and paper traditional art, I'm going to use Canva. It's a digital graphic design software. You can sign up for free on their website. We're not affiliated with them, but you can certainly sign up if you wish. No pressure from us. So the coat of arms is traditionally a type of shield, and like I said, we don't have to follow these traditional rules of design, but you certainly can. The Encyclopedia of Britannica that we have on our digital library is actually a great resource for getting more information about these traditional symbols, what they look like and how to use them. I'm going to completely deviate from that process because I want to. So I'm going to start with my coat of arms. I'm going to pick the background color. I'm going to go with a burgundy. It's one of my favorite colors. The thing with using colors in your coat of arms is that they are as important as the symbols that you use. However, you don't have to stick with the traditional interpretations of what colors mean. So green doesn't have to mean money. Red doesn't have to mean passion. Blue doesn't have to mean calmness or tranquility. It's up to you. I'm not picking burgundy for any particular reason other than I just like the color. So I'm going to divide my coat of arms into two sections. I'm going to have this left section here and the right section here. So I'm thinking for the left section, I want to represent where I come from or where I live. So the first thing that comes to mind is California. I was born and raised here. I like it here. So I'm going to find ways to represent that. I love the ocean. I don't think there's been a summer where I haven't been to the ocean. So I'm going to try to represent that with waves. I like this one. We'll go ahead and pick this as a representation for the ocean. The other thing that comes to mind when I think of California is its beautiful nature. I really like the California poppy. So I will try to find an image of a poppy. I found this beautiful illustration that I really like. However, for me personally, I'm going simple. So I want something that could potentially be drawn by hand if needed. You don't have to follow this. You can pick images that are a little bit more illustrated or complex, but I'm going to find something that's a little bit more simple. So I really like this one. I think it's simple enough, but it still evokes the feeling or idea of a poppy. So of course it has to be orange. And now for the right side, I want to represent some of my interests or hobbies. So I'm really into making music, recording music. So I'm going to pick a sound wave. I think that the image of a sound wave is pretty ubiquitous. So if you see it, you kind of know what it is, but still has some interesting visual design to it. Next, of course, I have to include a book. I'm a librarian after all, and I do enjoy reading. So the next thing I want to add is some sort of animal that I feel represents myself or some animal I have an affinity for. I'm going to pick the giant Pacific octopus. It's going to be hard to represent that accurately, but at least I will know what it is. I'm picking the octopus because I appreciate how intelligent, resilient, and just majestic the animal is. It also connects back to California and the ocean. So we're kind of all tied in here together. So next you want to pick some sort of motto that you feel represents yourself. Traditionally, they are in Latin, but you don't have to pick Latin. It could be the language of your choice. It could be in English, could be in more symbols or runes, if you want. I'm going to pick Latin just because I'm kind of basic. So my motto is de profundes at Astra, which is Latin for from the depths to the stars. It's kind of tying back into this ocean theme, but also speaking to my passion and interest in all things astronomy. And because it's important that everyone knows who you are, we need to put your name on it, or at least I'm going to. And so there you have it. That's my personal crest family crest. For any of those who are interested in creating your own, you don't have to use a digital platform like I did. You can use pen and paper. I started one with the letterpress at the library studio. You can do stamps. You can use cutouts from old magazines or discarded books. It's completely up to you. As long as you pick symbols that mean something to you, and you have a connection to. Here's an example of another one that was made. And here's the first draft I made. So I kind of like my updated one a little better. Thanks so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoy that and I hope you make your own personal crest. Feel free to share it with us on social media at LB City Library. We're available on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Until next time, take care.