The skeleton
Crossbar first, then the stem dropping from its true horizontal centre. The stem must sit on the centre line, not on your estimate of it — the eye is very good at spotting a T whose leg is off by a few percent.
What happens when you inflate it
T survives inflation well. The one thing to watch is the two arms: under heavy weight they thicken toward their tips and the crossbar turns into a dome. Keep the ends of the crossbar from swelling more than the middle.
What usually goes wrong: A short crossbar. A T with a crossbar barely wider than the stroke reads as a plus sign, and it makes the letter look like it is cowering between its neighbours.
Letters T sits next to
T is the best anchor letter in the alphabet for wide styles — its crossbar gives two neighbours a flat edge to butt against. It also tiles perfectly, so a word with two Ts can be built as a repeated column.
One thing to try
In handstyle, let the stem overshoot the crossbar slightly at the top and bounce off the baseline at the bottom. Both overshoots copy how a fast tag is actually drawn, and together they stop the letter looking like a signpost.
How to draw the letter T in four steps
- Sketch the skeleton. Crossbar first, then the stem dropping from its true horizontal centre. The stem must sit on the centre line, not on your estimate of it — the eye is very good at spotting a T whose leg is off by a few percent.
- Inflate the strokes. T survives inflation well. The one thing to watch is the two arms: under heavy weight they thicken toward their tips and the crossbar turns into a dome. Keep the ends of the crossbar from swelling more than the middle.
- Check the neighbors. T is the best anchor letter in the alphabet for wide styles — its crossbar gives two neighbours a flat edge to butt against. It also tiles perfectly, so a word with two Ts can be built as a repeated column.
- Add your own twist. In handstyle, let the stem overshoot the crossbar slightly at the top and bounce off the baseline at the bottom. Both overshoots copy how a fast tag is actually drawn, and together they stop the letter looking like a signpost.
Questions about the letter T
How wide should a graffiti T crossbar be?
Wider than feels comfortable — usually around eighty percent of the cap height. T is one of the widest single-stroke letters when it is drawn well.
Why does my T look off-balance?
The stem is not centred under the crossbar. Measure from both ends rather than eyeballing it, because the eye consistently misjudges this on a wide bar.