For your moment
Nobody designs a signature on an ordinary Tuesday.
They do it when the name changes, when the first contract arrives, when there is a book to sign or a company to start. Pick the moment, and see what the studio would draw for it.
For a new last name
A signature for the name you just took.
You have signed one name your whole life. The new one deserves better than a first attempt on the marriage certificate.
For a first job
Your first contract deserves more than the signature you made up in school.
An offer letter, a lease, a bank account. The next year is full of first signatures. Start with one you chose.
For real estate agents
You sign in front of clients. Sign like it.
Listing agreements, disclosures, closing packets. Your signature is on the page beside your client’s, every time. It should look like the agent they chose.
For doctors and clinicians
A signature you can write four hundred times a day and still recognise.
Orders, charts, scripts, letters. The signature a clinician writes most is the one they had the least time to design.
For lawyers and notaries
A signature that looks the same on page one and page ninety.
Filings, affidavits, engagement letters, notarial certificates. In your work, a signature is a record. It should be one you can reproduce on demand.
For authors
A signature worth the title page.
Someone is going to hand you your own book and ask you to sign it. That moment deserves a signature you designed, not the one you use at the pharmacy.
For artists and photographers
Sign the work like you meant it.
The corner of a print is the last decision in the piece. A signature designed for it belongs there; a scrawl apologises.
For founders
The first thing your company signs is you.
Incorporation papers, the bank, the first hire’s offer, the term sheet. Before the company has a brand, it has your signature.
For DocuSign, Adobe Sign and your email
The box says “draw your signature.” Upload one instead.
Every e-signing tool offers a font or a trackpad scrawl. Neither is yours. A real signature file, drawn on your name, takes a minute.
A gift for a graduate, a newlywed, a new partner
Give someone their signature.
For the graduate about to sign a first lease, the friend who just took a new name, the colleague made partner. A gift that is used every day, for the rest of their life.