[2] The official artwork, drawn by Juan Vega of Round Rock, Texas, was adopted in 1992 by Secretary of State John Hannah, Jr.[3] The seal has specified wording on both the obverse and reverse sides.

The seal shall have a star of five points, encircled by olive and live oak branches, and the words 'the State of Texas'".

After initial hopes for the quick annexation of Texas into the United States grew dim, the Third Congress modified the seal and created a national arms in 1839.

The department's chief engineer, Colonel Maybin H. Wilson, researched the design of the seal with the assistance of Werner W. Dornberger, an architectural engineering professor at the University of Texas; Bertha Brandt, assistant archivist of the state library; and Dorman Winfrey, archivist of the University of Texas.

In 1956, Octavio A. Martinez, an architectural engineering student at the University of Texas, prepared an eighteen-and-three-fourths-inch watercolor of the seal.

This design was faithful to the constitutional description and omitted erroneous details that had crept into the seal over the years, such as the addition of stars and diamonds in the bottom of the seal's outer ring and the use of post oak leaves instead of live oak leaves.