Harvard Law School (USA)

Harvard Law School, a college of Harvard University, decided to drop his former coat of arms, because it displayed prominently the family arms of Isaac Royall, the first backers of the college. The issue: Royall was a slaveholder and a slave trader, so the coat of arms was considered "racist".

This is the former coat of arms of the college:


I don't know any replacement proposal, apart from what seems to be a parody and a professor's suggestion to add "Iustitia" ("Justice") below "Veritas" ("Truth"). My proposal is not for total rupture:


I'm defacing Royall's arms with three gouttes de sang ("blood drops"), not forgetting his importance to the school, but denouncing that his wealth was gained in exchange for slave blood.

This way, it gives those black lives the credit for helping build, even though without their will, one of most prestigious law schools in the world.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
I'm an outsider here. Do you think it avoid racist connotations of former coat of arms? Or should Royall's arms be dropped completely?

My "mon"

Long time followers of my blogs may know I'm fascinated by the aesthetics of mon (Japanese family or individual emblems). I decided to design a mon-like emblem for me.

Unlike flags and "Western" coats of arms, mon don't have fixed colors. Here I'll present them black in transparent background.

I think the ideal starting point would be my coat of arms. But I'd like something that remarked it, not a direct translation.

Looking at some Medieval and Tudor-age armorials, I noticed how the negative area of cross moline (the kind of cross in my coat of arms) resembled four hearts. With that in mind, I designed my first kamon:


Heart-like shapes are present in Japanese mon: examples are the petals of sakura (cherry blossom, five petals each) and katabami (wood sorrel, three petals each).

I improved the previous putting it on an octagon:


Eight is a very meaningful number, specially for a computing geek like me.

I think this look much better than previous attempt. However, I made one final design: make it look like a flower (obviously, in Japanese style), with the hearts being petals.


I think it's a lovely design, and I would surely adopt it, for instance, if I lived in Japan. (As living near the biggest Japanese community outside Japan wasn't enough...)

Your comments and suggestions are mostly welcome.
Sorry for absence. I had some urgencies last weeks.