How To Draw The Letter S in Graffiti (Letter Science)
Welcome to another lesson in our Letter Science series, where we break down how to draw individual letters in graffiti. In this graffiti tutorial, we’re focusing entirely on the letter S—one of the most versatile letters in the alphabet. Whether you’re just starting your graffiti journey or looking to sharpen your skills, this post will walk you through everything you need to know about mastering the graffiti letter S across handstyles, throwies, and pieces.
Understanding the Structure of the Letter S
The graffiti letter S begins with a smooth, flowing motion from the cap line to the baseline. Most common versions of the S have a rounded top and bottom, which naturally has a little instability. A rounded base can cause the letter to feel like it’s rocking or tipping to one side. The key to stabilizing your letter S is to carefully balance its center of gravity. It doesn’t need to be mathematically perfect, but keeping the visual weight centered between the top and bottom curves helps maintain visual balance and flow.
Importance of Guidelines
Like with all graffiti letters, using guidelines, your cap line, mean line, and baseline is essential. These not only help define the proportions of the letter but also assist in structuring the S more precisely. This is especially important because, unlike other letters that might have stems or clearly defined bowls, the S has one continuous shape. Proper use of guidelines makes each segment (top, middle, and bottom) feel more controlled and intentional.
Exploring the Letter S
In this graffiti how-to, we walk through several structural variations of the S:
Standard Rounded S: Balanced and classic, with a clean top and bottom.
Top-Heavy S: Enlarges the upper curve while narrowing the lower curve.
Bottom-Heavy S: Reverses the above, offering a grounded and stable feel.
Offset Mean Line S: Shifts the center bend of the S higher or lower to change its rhythm and visual motion.
These tweaks help give your S a different personality and level of energy. Small adjustments can drastically change how your graffiti feels overall.
Variant Structures
Beyond the rounded S, we explore angular and square variations. Angular S’s have sharp bends and are often less stable visually, but they bring a bold, stylistic and more complex looking quality. Square S’s feel heavier and more grounded, especially when a square bottom is used. These are excellent when you want to convey structure and impact in your graffiti.
The compound stroke S, which combines both rounded and angular components, allows for more depth and contrast. These styles are more dynamic and offer creative flexibility when designing complex tags, throwies or pieces.
Weight, Flow, and Placement
The letter S behaves uniquely in terms of visual weight and balance. Rounded and angular S’s can appear unstable, which draws attention. On the other hand, these two lack the same volume as the more square S. Square forms provide more stability but may lack the same visual anticipation seen in the round and angled S. Consider these traits when you're thinking about how to write any name in graffiti—balancing an unstable S with stable neighboring letters can create a visually appealing name design.
Flow is also easy to achieve with the S due to its continuous motion. As long as your fundamentals are in place, the S will almost always bring movement to your overall name, and this is true no matter the S you use. More angular and square S’s may not be one smooth motion like their rounded counterpart, but they have plenty of lines/boxes that make it’s structure and this allows for easy flow through line uniformity/similarity.
Why Mastering the S Matters in Graffiti
There are hundreds of ways to draw the letter S, and each variation offers a new tool in your graffiti toolkit. By learning how to sketch multiple structures, balance letter weight, and transition your skills from handstyles to throwies to pieces, you’re building the creative control needed to draw any name in graffiti with confidence.
This is why mastering each letter individually through proper graffiti tutorials is so critical. You’re not just copying styles—you’re learning to build your own.
Keep Learning Graffiti
If you found this lesson helpful and want to dive deeper, we’ve got you covered. Check out our book The Ultimate Graffiti Guide Part 1: Fundamentals—the only graffiti book that covers all the fundamentals in incredible depth, with hundreds of images to guide you. Whether you're just starting out or you're an experienced artist refining your style, this book is a must-have.
Grab a digital copy here: Ultimate Graffiti Guide Book Part 1: Fundamentals and use code : Tag10 for 10% off any order.
