One of the most frequently asked questions I used to get back when people actually asked me things (hi, I miss you) is:
“How do you come up with all these different lettering styles?”
And honestly?
I don’t. Not in the way people seem to think.
Most of the time, I’m not reinventing the wheel—I’m just giving the wheel a little something extra. Tiny changes = totally new vibe. Look at all the different styles of bumfuzzle in the image above. It’s the same word, the same width and height, but they all look slightly different. How you ask? Let me explain.
Let’s start with my first example of Bumfuzzle - the most basic block letter style. Super simple.
Now, I take that exact same letter and just make it chonkier and get style #2.
For the 3rd style, I kept the chonk but rounded all the corners so there’s no hard angles.
They all have the same bones, but those two little tweaks (weight and angularity) are enough to change the look and feel.
So, you don’t need to start from scratch every time. Just nudge things in a new direction.
Also, remember, you are not a robot (or a computer).
Your hand will wiggle, your lines won’t always be straight, and that’s a good thing. Those little imperfections? They give your letters personality. Even when you’re trying to write the same style, your human-ness sneaks in and creates variations all on its own.
Can you notice what little changes I made to the remaining 3 bumfuzzles? Take a look before continuing down this post and see if you guessed correctly!
Bumfuzzle #4: I made the letters super thin, shifted the crossbars of the F and E higher, and shrank the top curve of the B. Whole new vibe.
Bumfuzzle #5: Opposite approach—lowered the crossbars, shrunk the bottom curve of the B, and added chonk plus roundness. Different again!
Bumfuzzle #6: I went full chaos mode and played letter Tetris. I adjusted sizes and stretched or shrunk parts of letters until the whole word fit into a rectangle. No rules, just going with how I feel. Well, there are still two things to keep in mind: make sure it's still legible and the spacing is more or less even.
Here’s the thing: You don’t need to be a genius to create a lettering style. You just need to play around and tweak stuff.
If you want to practice, try this:
Pick a word—any word. (May I suggest... bumfuzzle?)
Letter it five times, changing one or two (or three!) things each time. Weight, width, curves, height, spacing, crossbars, whatever.
Voilà! You’ve got yourself five “new” styles.
That’s it. That’s the magic. Style isn’t some secret sauce—it’s just a bunch of tiny decisions stacked together.
Hope this was helpful! And if you have any other questions (or want to talk about how fun it is to say bumfuzzle out loud), I’m all ears. Oh, and just in case you wanted to know, bumfuzzle means to confuse. What a great word, we need to bring it back in everyday use!!
