Sharpton: Creating your own Graffiti Tutorial

Reverend Al Sharpton is a significant player in the field of African American religious culture.

Since I have a couple decent photos of this graffiti name drawing, I thought it would be appropriate to talk a bit about my process of creating my graffiti style letters.

 While I was creating these name drawings,
 I drew several versions for each name both in pencil and in ink. 

I always begin with doodleing some letters and seeing if I can get any to fit together.

Sometimes I will look up graffiti I like or have photographed to see if there are any inspirational graffiti styles or letters that I like.  If I find one, I create a font based on the characteristics of that letter.  The letters(s) I sue for inspiration allow me to create a unique style or font. 

I then continue to work on other letters of the name using a consistent style.

My typography class plays a huge role here. 

I learned about parts of letters such as the x-height, serifs, ascenders, descenders and several more aspects of developing fonts and typefaces.  I know to keep a consistent x-height and I usually drop rounded letters just below the baseline.

Once I decide on the rules I can create most any word I want out of that style.  I think I have created around 7 different graffiti letter styles.

After creating the outline I decide whether I want the text to be 3-D or flat.

The last step is to add a background and value.

See more of my graffiti photographs and inspiration.