Unit insignia replacement
A couple years ago, 2/23 announced an insignia redesign contest (that eventually fizzled out). This was my entry. While regardless of redesign, the original image desperately needed rerendering. “Violent” was added in the brief, and the brief required that text to appear.
The original had no distinguishing marks, so I added the Dexter arm with callsign tattoo (it will never be perfect. I’ve kind of given up). The constellation is common in Marine unit insignia, but the grouping at the bottom with the inverted star refers to the award of the Medal of Honor to someone who threw himself on a grenade in World War II (a tale as old as time). The “scroll” on the updated design is actually a rifle sling.
2/23 is a reserve unit with outstations in California, Utah, and Nevada, hence the two golden tropics and silver equator (golden state, silver state, and beehives or whatever)
The only criticisms I’ve had were “I like simpler designs” and “people might not be able to read Roman numerals”
I tested printing down to breast insignia scale.
One of my favorite parts was that the monochrome version originally didn’t have the solid white background—it just had the outline of the lozenge—I decided to try out the solid fill and liked the 2-1/2 D cutout effect it gave.
My philosophy for text in heraldry is try not to, but if it adds something (aesthetic value/diagetic text rather than non-diagetic voiceover text) and the design doesn’t rely on literacy to recognize the insignia, you can get away with it if you do it well. (Case study: you can recognize the California flag without knowing the text says California, as well as that the text is stylized and has institutional gravitas; case study also tanto monta monta tanto)