Heraldic Conventions for Representing Colour

Detail from Jean Baptiste Zangre, Representation de l’Ancienne et Souveraine Duche de Brabant. Louvain, 1600. 

 The problem of representing colour in black ink was first addressed in heraldry. Various hatching patterns were understood by convention to represent specific colours. Flemish engraver Jan Baptist Zangrius is credited with the first use of such a scheme, but that proposed by Silvestro de Petra Sancta in 1638 became the most widely adopted.

Dotted ground Yellow or Gold (Or) 

 The scheme was also employed to represent colours on the monochrome trade mark register. A 1927 Saorstát Eireann Statutory Instrument provided illustrated descriptions and heraldic names for black (sable), "chestnut or deep orange (tenne)", blue (azure), purple (purpure), "dark brown (murrey or sanguine), red (gules), green (vert), white (argent), and "yellow or gold (or)". The scheme, including illustrations, was also included in a 1963 Statutory Instrument. The specification of "Intermediate colours ... by increasing or diminishing the intensity of the lines" provided for in 1927 appears of have been a lost art by 1963.

IE TM 90374

When a figurative mark shaded with vertical lines was registered in 1975, the shared area would have been understood to be red. A heraldic convention colour specification scheme formed part of the practice for the UK trade marks as recently as 1992. The 2005 edition of Kerly's Law of Trade Marks & Trade Names included a appendix on heraldic colour conventions. A trade mark application by Calor Gas (Northern Ireland) Limited was almost spared refusal in 2006 by the appointed person's recognition of the heraldic dotted ground pattern for yellow in the applicant's representation of the sign. It is clear from his comments, however, that the practice was considered archaic by then. That some ancient heraldic colour names, such as tenne, had no ready modern equivalents, hence chestnut or deep orange, demonstrates not just that colour names vary across time and cultures, but that the set of hues to which a colour label might be applied also varies. The inclusion of colour names such as red, green, blue, and yellow in the legislation suggests that such broad categories of colour were once considered sufficiently precise to be applied to trade marks.

• S.I. No. 78/1927 - Industrial Property Rules, 1927, Fifth Schedule
• S.I. No. 268/1963 - Trade Marks Rules, 1963. Rule 34
• Calor Gas (Northern Ireland) Ltd's Application No 2154261, O-340-06, 8 November 2006, para 4
• Kerly, 14th Edition 2005, Appendix 30.