Signature ideas

Six signature directions for Graham

Each one is a genuine drawing of the name — not a font — made by the same studio that draws the paid commission, with the design decisions stated under it.

Drawn from the name · 6 directions · capital G · hover one to see it in use

Understated · flowing · fully readable

Long and low, it takes the whole width of the line.

the full name

A level and angular hand. The capital is only 2.1 times the height of the letters after it. It is also one of the few here that adds no closing gesture at all. The "r" in "Worth" is the letter carrying it, because that is where your hand is already fastest.

Confident · flowing · signature-legible

Compact, with its weight gathered in one place.

the full name · closed with a small loop

An even and airy hand. It holds one weight almost the whole way through. It is the rare one that ties off with a small loop instead of flying away.

Commanding · sharp · signature-legible

Nothing curls that does not have to, and nothing is missing.

the full name · underlined in one return stroke

An unbroken and theatrical hand. Only 7 pen lifts in the whole thing. Almost nothing else here lays a line back underneath the name.

Confident · sharp · fully readable

Everything rounds, nothing is cornered.

the full name · finished on a long sail

An airy and quick hand. The letters are set well apart.

Understated · sharp · signature-legible

It leans into the page, the way a hand in a hurry does.

the full name · finished on a long sail

A dramatic and theatrical hand. The stroke swells and thins by a factor of 2.9.

Commanding · flowing · fully readable

No letter shouts over another, which is rarer than it sounds.

the full name · finished on a long sail

A grand and dense hand. The capital stands 3.2 times the height of the letters after it.

What Graham gives a designer

The capital G carries the mark. There are 2 distinct professional constructions of it on the studio's shelf, and which one a design commits to changes the whole gesture.

What follows the capital decides the middle of the mark: the h reaches into the ascender line, which gives the mark its upper silhouette.

6 letters is the length most signatures are built on — enough travel for character, little enough to repeat exactly.

Making it yours

These studies are drawn on the first name alone, because that is how the question is usually asked — but a working signature is built on your full name: the second capital, the balance between the two words, and the short everyday version are where the real design decisions live.

The studio draws twenty directions for your full name in about a minute, and the kit — the files, the report that explains the design, and the stroke-order lesson — is what the three you choose become.

Other names