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O in Graffiti Letters

By Maya Chen, lettering designer and type educator · Checked by Jordan Hale · · How we review content

Capital O
Lowercase o

Rendered in the Sedgwick Ave Display typeface, an open-source font. It is a reference shape, not a hand-drawn letter.

O is the simplest shape and the one that gets the most decoration. With no stems or bars, the ring and its hole carry everything. In a throw-up O is a fat doughnut; in a piece the counter becomes a canvas for a highlight, a character or a shine. The skill is making a round shape feel hand-drawn instead of compass-drawn, so you lean it, squash it and vary its weight.

Outline version to colour or trace

Open in the graffiti generator →

How to draw a graffiti capital O

  1. 1Draw a leaning oval rather than a circle, wider than it is tall, with the long axis tilted slightly forward.
  2. 2Thicken the ring unevenly: heavier on the left and bottom, lighter on the top and right.
  3. 3Outline the outer edge in one smooth line and the inner edge as a smaller leaning oval.
  4. 4Fill the ring, then decide what the counter gets: empty, a second colour, or a small shape such as a star or a spark.
  5. 5Add a curved white highlight on the upper left of the ring and a block behind the lower right.

Tip: Draw the outer oval first, then the inner oval slightly off centre toward the upper right. The uneven wall makes the ring look three-dimensional with no extra work.

How to draw a graffiti lowercase o

  1. 1Draw a small oval at x-height, leaning forward, a touch narrower than the capital.
  2. 2Thicken the ring with the same uneven weight: heavy bottom left, thinner top right.
  3. 3Outline it and keep the counter large enough to show a colour.
  4. 4Add a small flick or tail at the lower right if you want to link to the next letter.
  5. 5Fill and add a curved highlight to the upper left.

Tip: A lowercase o can be nothing but a smaller version of the capital, and in tags it is often reduced to a single loop.

What makes O awkward or easy

O has no corners, so it never looks wrong, but it also never looks interesting unless you work at it. A perfect circle looks mechanical, and a thin ring looks weak. The counter is a design space, and filling it with a highlight, a spark or a second shade changes the letter. O is also the roundest shape in a word, so it tends to look larger than flat letters beside it and may need to be a bit smaller.

Variations

A tag O is a single looped line, sometimes with a small crossing at the end. A throw-up O is a thick ring with a small counter, outlined once. A piece O may contain a second oval inside, a star in the counter and a heavy block shadow. Wildstyle O is often broken into two pieces or twisted into an infinity-like loop.

Common mistakes with graffiti O

  • The O is a perfect circle and looks stamped.

    Squash it into a leaning oval and vary the ring's thickness from side to side.

  • The wall is the same thickness all the way round.

    Thicken the left and bottom and thin the top right so the ring seems to turn.

  • The counter is a white hole with nothing in it.

    Fill it with a second colour, a highlight shape or a small star to give the letter depth.

  • The O is much bigger than the letters beside it.

    Reduce it by a few percent or overlap the neighbours into it, since round letters look bigger than flat ones.

Ideas for graffiti O

O shows up in names like Oli, Olivia and Omar, and in words such as Boom and Cool. For practice, fill a page with ten Os that differ only in the counter: empty, star, spiral, crescent, face. It teaches you how much a single detail changes a letter.

Printable graffiti O sheet

Trace the outlines, then fill the empty rows with your own letters.

Graffiti O you can copy and paste

There is no graffiti alphabet in Unicode. The closest copy-paste forms are bold gothic 𝕺 𝖔, the black square 🅾 and bubble Ⓞ ⓞ. They are fixed glyphs, so you will not get a leaning oval or a custom counter.

Graffiti O: questions

How do you draw a graffiti letter O?
Draw a leaning oval, thicken the ring more on the left and bottom, then outline the outer and inner edges. Fill the ring, add a decoration in the counter if you like, and finish with a curved highlight on the upper left and a block behind the lower right.
How do I make a graffiti O look three-dimensional?
Offset the inner oval slightly toward the upper right so the ring is thicker at the bottom left. Add a curved white highlight to the upper left of the ring and a block along the lower right. These three choices give depth without complex shading.
What can I put inside the counter of an O?
A second colour, a highlight, a small star or a spark all work. Keep the shape simple and smaller than the hole, so the letter still reads as an O. In tags, the counter is often left empty to keep the speed of the stroke.
Why does my O look mechanical?
It is probably a perfect circle with an even wall. Squash it into a leaning oval, vary the ring's width and let the outline wobble a little. Compare it with the other letters in your word, and match its lean to theirs.