Now take a sheet of paper and write your name or handle on it with a pencil the way you would normally write it and have a look at how you write it. Write it again only this time make it all capitals letters with plenty of space between them now try writing it in as many different ways as you can think of and don’t worry about the end results it is only the start of a process.

Please see my example ideas design sheet below.

3D graffiti design sheet of ideas drawn with a 3B graphite pencil, cool anybody can do this.

As you can see I have used different types of letters, curved ones, square linear type letters, boxed three dimensional letters and some that are hardly readable as letters at all, the more you create the better. If you find yourself stuck after only drawing a few then look for some ideas in the news paper, a comic, magazine or anywhere you might find ideas for lettering.

When you are happy that you have generated enough ideas then you can look over them and pick out one or two that you like for further development it can be as many as you like not just one or two if you like them. Now redraw these out on their own in the center of a clean piece of paper, try to fill the paper as much as you can and make these drawings more accurate correcting or altering anything that needs it as you go. Try to keep your lines faint and not too heavy because they will be harder to cover later.

You can also look online for lettering and graffiti art because there is an abundance of it even videos that show some fantastic work with it all being a great source of ideas and inspiration.

You can create block lettering easy by just redrawing your letters over the top of each other again but out of line like in the example below.

You could trace your name or handle and then move it a little to the left or right, up or down and retrace it over the top then fill in the area where you can still see the first letter outline in black to create the illusion of shadow.

You can also overlap letters so the second is hiding slightly behind the first and the third behind the second to create the illusion of one being in front of the other, this overlapping is a very common feature in graffiti art.

Please see the example below to understand this a little bit more in a visual context.

An example of 3d box lettering using outlines over the top of one and other.

Notice the black shadowing created by moving the letters up and the black outline around all the letter shapes you can also see that the colors have been added any old how but are sill effective because of the well defined black outlines.

Now you can take some of your original ideas and try some of this with them below you will find some of my designs taken from the first sheet of simple pencil drawings.

3D lettering example of how to use letters doubled over the top of each other to make box letters.

I have added color and black outlines which is something you should now be trying with your own designs you could try many different combinations of color or black outlines you could even try colored outlines.

Now you can further develop one idea and try it as many different ways as you can think of or combinations or color, see the examples below for further development of ideas.

Some of the earlier examples that have been further developed.

Examples of further development with graffiti letter ideas.

The tools I use:

Paper or drawing pad A4 printer paper is good and not very expensive but pads are better you can carry them around with you if they are not too big.

Soft graphite pencils preferably mechanical pop a point type pencils, 0.5, 3B.

Fine line permanent ink pens, 0.5 and biros in different colours.

Permanent marker pens the more colours the better.

Water soluble felt tip pens the more colours the better.

Coloured pencils in various colours.

Quarter inch flat brush and water.

learning how to draw graffiti is not difficult or hard and you can get very good very quickly if you put a little effort in to it, honest.