For those who prefer to work with vector image editing programs, Gristol-Serkonos has made this excellent guide for making official seals with InkScape.
Let's face it: official seals (like those used by US government agencies) are cool, and making one for your NationStates country would be even cooler. There was a website, says-it.com, where you could generate official seals in addition to a number of other interesting images; unfortunately, the Official Seal Generator on the site has been down for years, and my attempt to contact the webmaster about it resulted in no response.
But, luckily for us, creating our own seals is not very hard (though it may take a bit longer than the official seal generator). Once I learned to make seals for myself, I was appalled at how easy it was and how stunningly realistic the end result was. In this guide, I'll describe how to design one—complete with visuals explaining the process on GIMP. The best part? GIMP is entirely free, so this process costs absolutely nothing!
Note: In order to fully comprehend this guide, one must understand the basics of the Paths tool on GIMP. Here is an excellent guide that contains basic use of the Paths tool to create images.