Signature ideas
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.
Understated · flowing · fully readable
a capital thrown inside a loop
A deliberate and restrained hand. It is built in 8 separate strokes. It is also one of the few here that throws a flat loop right around the R. The "r" in "Richard" is the letter carrying it, because that is where your hand is already fastest.
Confident · flowing · signature-legible
finished on a long sail
An airy and urgent hand. The letters are set well apart. It is the rare one that leaves on an exit stroke long enough to carry the eye off the page.
Commanding · sharp · signature-legible
a capital that drops below the line · closed with a small loop
A theatrical and dramatic hand. One letter is pushed well past the proportions of its neighbors. Almost nothing else here ties off with a small loop instead of flying away.
Confident · sharp · fully readable
a capital that drops below the line · underlined in one return stroke
A dramatic and rounded hand. The stroke swells and thins by a factor of 3.9. It is also one of the few here that lays a line back underneath the name.
Understated · sharp · signature-legible
finished on a long sail
A level and spare hand. The capital is only 1.8 times the height of the letters after it. It is the rare one that hangs the name off the R as a stem.
Commanding · flowing · fully readable
a capital that drops below the line · underlined in one return stroke
An upright and measured hand. It stands almost straight up, 22 degrees off vertical. Almost nothing else here lays a line back underneath the name.
Everything starts with the R. The studio holds 2 distinct constructions of that capital — drawn from how professionals actually open a name — and each direction below commits to one of them.
After that, the lowercase run does the work: the h and d reach into the ascender line, which gives the mark its upper silhouette and the dotted i leaves a mark above the line that a fast hand turns into a flick.
7 letters is the length most signatures are built on — enough travel for character, little enough to repeat exactly.
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.