The skeleton
The vertical is the letter. Make it long — a short stem with a long foot looks like a boot. The foot should reach roughly the width of the letter box, and the corner between them should stay as square as the style allows.
What happens when you inflate it
The corner is the only structure, so inflation either holds it or destroys it. Fattten the corner evenly and L stays readable; let the inner corner fill in and the letter becomes a wedge. There is no second chance, because L has no counter to fall back on.
What usually goes wrong: A stubby foot. It is the single most common proportion error in hand-lettered graffiti, and it makes the letter look like a letter that gave up.
Letters L sits next to
L butts against everything with a flat vertical edge, which is why it is the letter most often used to start or finish a piece. It also connects cleanly into E, F and T, and into the open terminals of C and G.
One thing to try
In bubble styles, make the foot slightly shorter than the stem is tall and let the outer corner carry all the roundness. The asymmetry stops the letter looking like a bracket.
How to draw the letter L in four steps
- Sketch the skeleton. The vertical is the letter. Make it long — a short stem with a long foot looks like a boot. The foot should reach roughly the width of the letter box, and the corner between them should stay as square as the style allows.
- Inflate the strokes. The corner is the only structure, so inflation either holds it or destroys it. Fattten the corner evenly and L stays readable; let the inner corner fill in and the letter becomes a wedge. There is no second chance, because L has no counter to fall back on.
- Check the neighbors. L butts against everything with a flat vertical edge, which is why it is the letter most often used to start or finish a piece. It also connects cleanly into E, F and T, and into the open terminals of C and G.
- Add your own twist. In bubble styles, make the foot slightly shorter than the stem is tall and let the outer corner carry all the roundness. The asymmetry stops the letter looking like a bracket.
Questions about the letter L
How long should the foot of a graffiti L be?
Roughly as long as the letter is wide, which in most styles is a bit shorter than the stem is tall. Much shorter and it looks broken; much longer and it starts looking like a corner piece rather than a letter.
Why does the corner of my L get lost?
Because the inner corner rounded off during inflation. Keep the inside angle tight and let the outside of the corner do the rounding — the inside edge is what tells the eye where the corner was.