There are some hideous badges out there!
Particularly in Sussex Wing as that LaSER email states.
Trying to convince OCs that their ‘long held’ badges with laurels, blue circlet, St Edwards Crown, and aesthetically revolting ‘logos’ should be scrapped is not as easy as you might hope.
I’m all for forcing the hand of these people because it offends my eye as a graphic designer and my interest in herladry
Though, I’m not at all for mandating the large cost of official approval via the College of Arms.
I couldn’t agree with you more regarding the hideous Badges WDI, and you’re right, £450 is a lot of money, but you do get a lot of Badge for it and the knowledge that it’s yours in perpetuity. Unless the HQAC special Projects Officer does the approving bit, I don’t see any other way that you’ll get the heraldically-correct finished article though; there has to be some check mechanism to filter out the rubbish.
I think that in the past, our people saw that RAF formations and other military units had Badges and, understandably, they decided they wanted one too. The problem is that until now, nobody has ever told them what was or wasn’t acceptable and as with a lot of other things, they just did what they wanted; we are now left with the unregulated legacy.
We chose our two badge elements, a fountain (of the heraldic kind) and a stork, based on the history of the village.
The fountain for the river from where the village takes it’s name; and the stork as a locally accepted icon - the village having been well known for storks for centuries (and it’s ancient name as such recorded in the Domesday book).
Some other badges though clearly haven’t as much thought or relevance.
so whats going to happen when an OC with a crest thats not been through the CoA for verification/whatever turns round to HQAC and says ‘sorry, i’ve got a minibus on the bones of its bottom, no tents and kids who’s parents can’t afford their subs, let alone camp fees - i’m not paying £500 for a flag…’?
i’m assuming that since most Sqn funds fall under the CWC and not public money, HQAC can send whatever written orders they like, but the CWC aren’t obliged to buy stuff just because HQAC want them to…
Probably get told to use the FREE HQAC official ATC badge.
Nope. But the OC does sit in the CoC so, if HQAC went the way above regarding “official badges” then there would be an expectation of them removing the unauthorised ones and replacing them with the ATC one until such date that a squadron can afford to buy their own one.
so its all just fluff then - ‘stop using unofficial crests/whatever by X date, and if you don’t fancy forking out £500 to get your unofficial crests/whatever made official you can just use the free one…’?
i have to ask, who spends money getting new/unofficial/whatever crests turned into signs, banners etc… and not on buying kit, diesel, and subsidising trips? is this perhaps not a selection mechanism that HQAC should be using to work out who should be given the opportunity to explore wider interests?
i have to ask, who spends money getting new/unofficial/whatever crests turned into signs, banners etc… and not on buying kit, diesel, and subsidising trips? is this perhaps not a selection mechanism that HQAC should be using to work out who should be given the opportunity to explore wider interests?[/quote]
in my experience those with crests already have minibuses, tents, burgans, rifles and everything else!
[quote=“incubus” post=20209]I have no problem at all with the ACO mandating a certain general design on squadron badges - that being pretty much everything but the design in the middle.
I also have no issues with them placing certain restrictions on the central design to ensure that it is appropriate for use in representing the ACO and is not plagiarised from a military design which caught someone’s fancy.
I do have issue with enforcing heraldic motifs and layouts on the designs and for paying hundreds of pounds to a private company to manage the system then [possibly having a limited “original” to work from.
Spending £500 for an approved badge seems like a misuse of charity funds to me.[/quote]
I keep hearing the same old “HQAC are going to require…” but no, nothing as yet.
I keep offering my ‘not expert, but somewhat informed’ advice when asked, but as you say - there are still dozens of awful badges out there.
On one hand, the most pragmatic approach might be to say “HQAC have appointed a person with experience who will gladly give advice to Squadrons and will ‘approve internally’ the designs of Squadron badges.” That way, units with money to burn who choose to go through The College could pay their £500 and get an officially approved badge; where those who can’t justify the cost and want to do their own thing could at least be controlled. If there were no cost involved it would be far easier to enforce the removal of these awful badges in favour of something appropriate.
On the other hand of course, any HQAC appointed person, being outside the College of Arms, is not going to have easy access to the huge collection of already approved badges, thus making it far harder to rule out the efforts of some local squadron who’ve swiped the design from someone else’s approved badge.
There are lots of ATC Squadrons who have adopted the devices of RAF Squadrons (or those of other Commonwealth Air Forces) because they share the same number. That isn’t an acceptable justification for approval. I’ve often heard “…but the Squadron Association said that we could use it”. That doesn’t cut the mustard because the Squadron Association doesn’t own the rights to the badge - they can’t gift it’s use to someone else.
If the College of Arms should ever force the point there would be little that HQAC could do, other than to forbid the use of unapproved badges and mandate that everyone wishing to have a badge goes through the College… Which brings us back to where we keep being threatened with going.
How would they enforce it? “You Cadet take off that T-Shirt” I hardly think so.
The £500 cost is nothing compared to the value that most Squadrons have in circulation in Squadron Clothing. (Hell I probably have over £100 worth from each of my last 2 Squadrons!)
Many of the badges out their while somewhat gopping in heraldry terms actually have a lot of local history in them. (Yes someone should remind people of the Colours things are supposed to be, but beyond that why do we care?).
Maybe just maybe the Corps should stick to focusing on things that matter rather than Policing T-Shirts & Letterheads?
But it may not be HQAC’s choice. If the College of Arms decided to make a fuss - as is their legal right - HQAC will have to respond; and saying “Sorry chaps, we’re not interested in policing T-shirts and letterheads within our Corps” will probably not effect the outcome we would like.
Where these badges have already been used on items such as clothing and vehicle livery it’s more problematic; or, rather, it’s far less popular. The sensible approach would be to say that no further production is made using the inappropriate badge and that future runs must only use an approved badge.
But with regards to the use of unofficial badges on stationary, or on websites/social media it’s easier: “You will not use that gopping badge on your website from this point onwards. Contact so-and-so who will be happy to advise and assist you in producing a more appropriate badge.”
Some of these badge issues are not simply that the devices are not displayed in a traditionally heraldic tincture; some of them are using images or mottos which are not appropriate to be associated with our organization; and/or are using the wrong Crown (which is a legal infringement of Crown copyright) and/or displaying a laurel wreath.
The simple approach of providing a fixed design template for squadron badges with the central devices to be chosen be the squadrons, in line with some basic guidelines, would be a good first step to fixing most of the errors and turning out some consistency within the Corps. It’s an easy fix.
Within my Wing at least, I’ve made it very clear to Squadrons what the potential pitfalls might be and I’ve offered my best guess advice to everyone. Primarily in the interest of preventing costly mistakes should the College/HQAC force our hand in the future.
If having received that advice a unit goes off and spends their money getting their awful badge embroidered onto clothing or whatever, then whilst it might end up a costly mistake in the future, they can’t say that they weren’t warned.
We really should be taking the basic design the ATC badge and adhering to that for unit badges at all levels of the organisation. That means red circle, gold scroll, a set typeface in black (though not the corps one), the same crown and, for squadrons, the number in indents.
No blue circles. No laurel leaves on the outside, no cunning designs.
What goes in the middle is up to the squadron. Ideally it apparently needs to be heraldic symbology ona white field to have a hope of being approved, but I am not sure we should worry about sticking to that. What we do need to do is ensure we are not using anything inappropriate and are not stealing anybody else’s intellectual property.
I’ve found Flareserif821 BT to be a nice approximation of the original type used on the ATC badge.
I’ve used it in all the badges I’ve drawn up for people.
