Traditional International style A3 Dan Certificate

We recently worked with a group in Scotland to produce a traditional International style A3 Dan Certifictae. 

The basis of the certificate template is a standard design and then is customised with group details, logo, Chief Instructor details etc. This works out about only half the cost of a fully custom certificate and follows the format issued by most Japan based organisations.

Always nice to see a photo of Dan Certificates being presented - Congratulations to Stuart McLean on promotion to Sandan.

If you would like to explore certificate options for your group just drop us a mail to sotosabisu@btinternet.com

 Current costings can be found in the relevant shop page please click on the button below to view.

"Click" to go to - Certificates section shop page

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Seal Script Hanko and Personal Hanko

We recently produced some seal script hanko and examiner stamps for Chireikai. 

The organisation stamps are in Japanese kanji and we outsource the production of the seal script from our partners in Japan before completing the graphic design for the stamp.

The personal examiner stamps are in katakana.

If you are interested in having some stamps made, just drop us a e mail with your requirements to sotosabisu@btinternet.com and we can guide you through the process.

Current costings can be found in the relevant shop page please click on the button below to view.

"Click" to go to - Hanko and Inkan section shop page

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Nafudakake for Ronin

It is not always the case that a martial artist is strongly attached to any particular group. 

Sometimes their grade may have been awarded by a previous instructor, or organisation.

If this is the case it may not be appropriate to add the details of the current group, implying that it had been awarded, or verified by the current organisation. It can also be just personal preference.

When this is the case the ryu can be added to the first nafuda. 

The nafudakake is read from right to left, so in this case the nafuda reading Shotokan and depicting the Shotokan tiger is the first nafuda.

This presentation piece was made from European oak in our classic black frame.

When there are no light coloured logo, black text and graphics are a great strong contrast to the oak nafuda. 

We believe oak also symbolises tradition, so is a very much suited to this type of commission.

Nafudakake in European oak.

Current costings can be found in the relevant shop page please click on the button below to view.

"Click" to go to - Nafuda section shop page

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A Godan (5th Dan) Black Belt Certificate

Here we have a Godan (5th Dan) certificate for Total Shotokan Karate.

Our congratulations to Daniel on your recent promotion, many thanks to the group for forwarding the presentation photo, greatly appreciated.

 

The Graphics for the custom certificate

The Presentation

If you would like to explore certificate options for your group just drop us a mail to sotosabisu@btinternet.com

 Current costings can be found in the relevant shop page please click on the button below to view.

"Click" to go to - Certificates section shop page

Top Tip

If you are accessing this site on your phone you may wish to view the "Web version" and access the menu in the side-bar to navigate. Just scroll down for the link.

Notice of cost increases for 2026

 We are holding prices until the end of the year and advise all our customers that the "Shop" page will be updated in late December.

This will be restricted to material cost increases that we are unable to absorb approximately 4.5%

Any order received before the end of December will be billed at our current 2025 rates.

The Aikido Nafudakake

We seem to have had a bit of a run on commissions that are a little more challenging, and take a fair bit additional design time up. 

We were working with Maksym from Poland who was looking for a presentation piece to recognise fifty years of budo of their chief instructor.

It was unusual in a way, because it was important to capture rankings from four separate disciplines. These would normally be on individual nafuda, but that would overwhelm the piece. In the end we used a double width nafuda for the grades and disciplines and balanced the piece with two single nafuda each side.

We had to recreate the Aikido Aikikai logo from scratch as we could not find a suitable vector image online. 

We probably went a little "above and beyond" with this project, but at the end of the day we were celebrating a budoka with fifty years dedication. Worth a little bit of extra time on our part I think.

The nafuda were made from Canadian hard maple as the light colour is best as a background for logo, especially if yellow is included.

It was an absolute pleasure working with Maksym on this one, hope it arrives safely in Poland in the next few days.

 Current costings can be found in the relevant shop page please click on the button below to view.

"Click" to go to - Nafuda section shop page

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The big certificate makeover

We recently worked with KD Combat Systems to do an extensive re-vamp on their certificate.

It was a bit of a strange one, because the client wanted to change practically everything, but at the same time wanted to retain as much of the old as possible. A serious nod to the history of the group.

We worked with them and produced a fully custom certificate to meet their specific needs.

New Shodan Certificate

The client wanted to retain the graphic of the tiger and the snake. 

We did offer some high resolution vector alternatives, although generally similar in style they did not gain approval. 

They only had a low resolution image which would not convert to a vector image in our graphics package. In the end we broke the image apart, then converted it, heavily edited it and stitched it all back together before making it a transparency and adding it as a watermark. 

There was probably about six hours work alone and the image comprises of 2898 individual objects.

The original certificate format

The group's hanko was in a sort of a seal script katakana. Although within the hanko and other parts of the certificate KD had been translated into katakana (which doesn't really work), we asked what the KD stood for, which was originally their first dojo, the Kihaku dojo. They also wanted to add Shotokan, so the hanko reads "Kihaku Dojo Sento Shotokan", and is written now all in kanji.

We translate the recipients name and add the grade into the main text. 

The text has changed to a standard Japanese Shotokan format. 

At the request of the group the imperial calendar date was removed at the "proof" stage. 

The reason for this is that the group does not generally hold centralised gradings, the chief instructor may move from club to club, and only grade one or two participants at anyone time. 

They chose just to have the date within the English text. This also allowed the Chief Instructor to prepare a batch of certificates, even if examination dates had not been finalised, or may have been arranged over a two to three month period.

As we regularly say, custom is what we do best. Quite a few hours on the project, probably a bit of a "loss leader", but we are equally happy working with groups that may only order a handful of certificates a year, compared to large groups that may have thirty to fifty members grading multiple times a year.

Current costings can be found in the relevant shop page please click on the button below to view.

"Click" to go to - Certificates section shop page

Top Tip

If you are accessing this site on your phone you may wish to view the "Web version" and access the menu in the side-bar to navigate. Just scroll down for the link.