Signature ideas

Six signature directions for Moshe

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 M · 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 · underlined in one return stroke

A generous and deliberate hand. It spends 42 loops getting through your name. It is also one of the few here that lays a line back underneath the name. The "s" in "Moshe" is the letter carrying it, because that is where your hand is already fastest.

Confident · flowing · signature-legible

It turns corners instead of rounding them, and that is the whole temperament.

the full name · underlined in one return stroke

An upright and level hand. It stands almost straight up, 18 degrees off vertical. It is the rare one that lays a line back underneath the name.

Commanding · sharp · signature-legible

Pressure where it presses, hairline where it lifts.

the full name · finished on a long sail

An airy and quick hand. The letters are set well apart. Almost nothing else here leaves on an exit stroke long enough to carry the eye off the page.

Confident · sharp · fully readable

Everything rounds, nothing is cornered.

the full name · finished on a long sail

An upright and theatrical hand. It stands almost straight up, 17 degrees off vertical. It is also one of the few here that leaves on an exit stroke long enough to carry the eye off the page.

Understated · sharp · signature-legible

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

the full name

An unbroken and urgent hand. Only 8 pen lifts in the whole thing. It is the rare one that adds no closing gesture at all.

Commanding · flowing · fully readable

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

the full name · closed with a small loop

A grand and quick hand. The capital stands 3.0 times the height of the letters after it. Almost nothing else here ties off with a small loop instead of flying away.

What Moshe gives a designer

The capital M 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.

5 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