Two years ago, I digitised our family crest as part of a Christmas present project for my Dad. My dad is massively into genealogy, so I made him an A2 family tree, using his extensive research of our family lineage. But since we could only find a low resolution version of our family crest, I decided to turn to Adobe Illustrator to make a vector version.

It's my dad's 65th birthday this year, and as a gift my brother Edward and I decided to get the Barnard crest engraved on a silver coin for him. It's a present that combines his two favourite hobbies; numismatics (otherwise known as coin collecting) and genealogy. 

My brother had tried to get this done before, but he was initially quoted something alone the lines of £1000! I believe that this was because they would be using a pressing machine to stamp it to a coin, and creating a 3D press would have been hugely expensive. 

Instead, I looked into laser engraving. This is a much cheaper solution, but I would need to create a single colour version of the crest. So I dove back into Illustrator to make a vector version in black.

I moved the diamond away from the bear, outlined some of the detail and cut the white away from the black, so the final file was a single colour shape.

The next step was to create a coin design.

I made an inverse version to sit inside a black circle, and then added some detail around the edge to mimic a coin style. This was then sent off to the engraver as an EPS, to be added to a one-inch disk of sterling silver.

A chap called Lester at Laser Engraving Services, used a fibre laser to score the design, and then coloured it with platinum for a dark finish. And on top of this, they turned it round in a day. I sent the design files on a Wednesday, and had the coin in my hand on Thursday!

The result was amazing. I was so pleased with how this turned out, as was my dad.