Ten ways to design a sigil

How to read the labels Historical what the old sources say. Later tradition what later writers added. Modern modern practice and my own notes.

There is no single right way to design a sigil. Below are ten methods, from the letter method most beginners start with to number grids, sound and digital design. Each comes with a little history and a short set of steps.

Before you begin, have your statement of intent ready (see how to write one) and gather plain paper, a pencil and an eraser. Every method on this page ends the same way: you redraw your design cleanly, check it, and then charge it or simply keep it.

Method 1: Letter reduction

Modern This is the most widely used method today. Its root is Spare’s 1913 idea of combining the simplified letters of a sentence into a single sign. The rule of eliminating repeated letters comes from Peter J. Carroll’s Liber Null (documented in the 1987 Weiser edition, and probably in the first edition of 1978), and the optional step of removing vowels is a later variation.

1. Write your statement in capital letters. For example: I SLEEP WELL.
2. Cross out repeated letters. Go through the sentence from the start. Keep the first appearance of each letter and cross out any later appearances.
3. Optional: cross out vowels. Some practitioners also remove vowels, which leaves fewer letters and a simpler design. In our example, that would leave S, L, P, W.
4. Look at the letter shapes. Write the remaining letters in a row. Notice their strokes: vertical lines, horizontal lines, curves, diagonals, and which letters could share a stroke.
5. Combine. Start with the letter that has the strongest shape, often one with a long vertical stroke, and build the others onto it. Letters may share lines, overlap, be turned, flipped, enlarged, or shrunk.
6. Simplify. Redraw the combined shape several times, each time a little cleaner. Remove anything that feels cluttered.
7. Stylize, if you like. Add a small circle at one end, a short bar at another, dots, or an enclosing circle. These are decorative choices with a long history, not requirements.
8. Draw the final version once, slowly and clearly, in pen.

In the drawing above, the letters of I SLEEP WELL have been combined into one design, with the S curving beside the stem. If you draw the S straight across the stem instead, the design suddenly looks very like a dollar sign, an odd thing to put on a sigil for sleep. That is exactly the kind of accidental resemblance the last section of this page asks you to look for.

Do not worry if your first attempts look clumsy. Expect to make several versions before one feels right.

Method 2: Tracing on a planetary square

Later tradition Modern This method uses the number squares of Agrippa. The idea that names can be traced as lines on the squares is a later reconstruction of how Agrippa’s seals may have been made. Using an English letter-number table, as here, is a modern adaptation.

Choosing a square. You can use the square of Saturn for every sigil; it is the simplest. Or you can choose a square whose planet matches your statement, using the traditional planetary themes. In brief: Saturn for patience, endurance, and boundaries; Jupiter for growth and generosity; Mars for courage and energy; the Sun for vitality and clarity; Venus for love, beauty, and harmony; Mercury for study, speech, and travel; the Moon for dreams, rest, and change. The planetary meanings are traditional; how much they matter is up to you.

Turning letters into numbers. Use this simple table, which repeats the numbers 1 to 9 through the alphabet. It is a modern convention, sometimes called the Pythagorean table, though it has nothing to do with the ancient Pythagoras.

• 1: A, J, S
• 2: B, K, T
• 3: C, L, U
• 4: D, M, V
• 5: E, N, W
• 6: F, O, X
• 7: G, P, Y
• 8: H, Q, Z
• 9: I, R

Tracing.

1. Reduce your statement first, using steps 1 and 2 of Method 1, or choose one key word from it.
2. Write the number for each letter.
3. Draw the square lightly, with its numbers.
4. Find the first number. Draw a small circle in its cell.
5. Draw a straight line to the cell of the next number, and on through the sequence.
6. If the same number comes twice in a row, draw a small loop or hump at that cell.
7. If a line passes straight through the center of another number’s cell on its way, that is fine; some people add a small kink to show the line does not stop there.
8. End the line with a short crossbar at the last cell.
9. Lift the line off the square and redraw it on its own.

Method 3: The rose cross wheel

Later tradition This is the Golden Dawn method from the history of sigils, using the 22 Hebrew letters on a rose of three rings. It is the most demanding method in this page, because it requires you to spell your words in Hebrew letters. Try it if Hebrew or the Golden Dawn interests you. Otherwise, Method 4 does the same work with English letters.

1. Prepare a rose. If you want the Golden Dawn’s exact arrangement, copy it from Regardie’s The Golden Dawn.
2. Transliterate. Spell your word or key letters in Hebrew, using a consistent convention.
3. Trace. Circle at the first letter’s petal, straight lines from petal to petal, a hump or loop for a doubled letter, and a crossbar at the end, as on the history of sigils.
4. Lift and redraw the line on its own.

Because Hebrew is a sacred language for many people, take care with the letters, and if the word is important to you, consider asking someone who reads Hebrew to check your spelling.

Method 4: The circular letter wheel

Modern This is the name-tracing method, applied to a statement instead of a name. Use the wheel in the drawing below or one of your own.

1. Choose your letters. A whole statement traced letter by letter makes a tangled line, so reduce it first with steps 1 and 2 of Method 1, or trace a single key word.
2. Trace as on a square: a circle at the first letter, straight lines from letter to letter, a loop for a doubled letter, and a crossbar at the end.
3. Lift and redraw the line on its own, smoothing it if you wish.

Method 5: Pictorial sigils

Modern Not every sigil has to come from letters. A pictorial sigil is built from simple images that stand for the parts of your intent. Carroll included a pictorial method in Liber Null, and Frater U∴D∴ developed it further. The artist and witch Laura Tempest Zakroff, in her book Sigil Witchery (2018), teaches a widely loved approach. You build a personal visual vocabulary of simple marks, such as lines, circles, spirals, waves, and arrows, each carrying a meaning for you, and combine them into a sigil. This practice is inspired by that general idea; for her full method, read her book.

1. Find the key ideas in your statement.
2. Give each idea a simple mark. Use shapes that feel right to you.
3. Combine the marks into one design.
4. Simplify until the design is clean enough to draw from memory.
5. Record your vocabulary. In your journal, write each mark and what it means to you.

Method 6: Mantra (sound) sigils

Modern A mantra sigil is a sigil made of sound rather than shape. Carroll called it the mantric method, and Spare mentioned mantras among his ways of emptying the mind. The idea is to turn your statement into a nonsense phrase that you can chant, so that the sound carries the intent without the meaning.

1. Reduce your statement using steps 1 and 2 of Method 1.
2. Rearrange the letters into syllables you can pronounce.
3. Say it aloud several times, changing it until it has a rhythm you like.
4. Write it down in your journal with a note of how you pronounce it.
5. Use it in a chanted charge or as something to repeat quietly.

Method 7: Automatic and spontaneous drawing

Later tradition Modern Spare practiced automatic drawing, letting his hand move without conscious direction. This practice is a gentle, time-limited version. It is not a trance technique. You stay fully aware throughout.

1. Prepare. Sit at a table with plenty of paper and a soft pencil or pen.
2. Breathe slowly and normally for a minute.
3. Draw for three to five minutes without stopping and without trying to make anything in particular.
4. Stop and look. Within the scribble, look for a shape that stands out: a loop, a cluster of crossings, a curve that catches your eye.
5. Extract it. On a clean sheet, redraw that shape on its own, simplified.
6. Record the session in your journal, including how it felt.

Method 8: Monograms and letter ligatures

Historical Modern A monogram combines two or more letters into one sign, usually a name or initials. Monograms are old: Christian monograms such as the Chi-Rho, royal ciphers, and printers’ marks are all examples. Agrippa describes, in Book Three, chapter 30, a way of writing the names of angels by a “gathering together of letters,” and gives the name Michael as an example, written in this way in more than one alphabet. He says this practice was most received among the Arabians. Spare compared sigils to heraldry and monograms. The bindrune, two or more runes joined on a shared stem, is a close modern cousin.

1. Choose your letters. A monogram works best with a short word, a name, or two to four key letters from your statement.
2. Write them in capitals, side by side.
3. Find shared strokes. H and M share vertical stems; E can sit on the stem of H; O can enclose the rest.
4. Join them into one figure, keeping each letter recognizable if you like, or partly hidden.
5. Balance the figure. Monograms often look best when they are roughly symmetrical or sit neatly inside a circle or square.

Method 9: Number sigils and the nine chambers

Historical Modern Agrippa, in the same chapter, groups the Hebrew letters into nine “chambers” by their number values. Each letter can then be written as a simple shape: the outline of its chamber in a grid, with dots to show which letter within the chamber is meant. The same principle lies behind the “pigpen” ciphers of later centuries. This practice adapts the idea to English letters. It is a modern adaptation.

1. Draw a grid like a tic-tac-toe board: two vertical and two horizontal lines, making nine cells.
2. Number the cells 1, 2, 3 across the top row, 4, 5, 6 across the middle, and 7, 8, 9 across the bottom.
3. Place the letters in the cells using the table from Method 2: A, J, S in cell 1; B, K, T in cell 2; and so on to I, R in cell 9.
4. Write each letter as its cell’s shape. Each cell is bounded by some of the grid lines.
5. Add dots for position. The first letter in a cell has no dot, the second has one dot inside the shape, the third has two.
6. Combine the shapes. Write your reduced letters this way, then join, overlap, or stack the shapes into one design, as with Method 1.

Method 10: Digital and vector sigils

Modern You can design any sigil on a screen. Vector drawing software, which stores lines as precise paths rather than pixels, is especially useful because the design can be printed at any size without blurring. Many free and paid programs and tablet apps can do this.

1. Start on paper. Make your sigil by any method in this page, by hand, at least as a rough sketch.
2. Scan or photograph the sketch, or place it beside your screen.
3. Redraw it in your software, using simple lines, arcs, and circles.
4. Refine. Use the software’s alignment and symmetry tools if you want a precise, balanced shape.
5. Save it offline. Store the file on your own device rather than an online service, if privacy matters to you.
6. Print if you need a paper copy for charging or keeping.

Two cautions. First, avoid online sigil generators for private statements, because they may store what you type. Second, a sigil on a screen is easy to copy and share without thinking. Decide in advance whether this one is for keeping, releasing, or sharing, and treat the file accordingly.

Refining: balance, closure, and “does it look like something else?”

Whatever method you use, a few final checks help turn a rough design into a finished sigil.

Does it look like something else? This is the most important check, and it is easy to skip. Turn your sigil upside down, rotate it, flip it, and look at it from across the room. Ask a friend who does not know what it is to tell you what they see. Then check for these problems:

• Hate symbols. Some shapes have been taken up by extremist groups, and an innocent sigil can accidentally resemble them. Watch especially for:

  • hooked or bent crosses in any rotation, which can read as a swastika;
  • doubled angular S shapes or lightning bolts, which can read as the insignia of the Nazi SS;
  • certain runes in some contexts, such as the Othala rune with “wings” or “feet,” the Wolfsangel, and the “life” rune;
  • a wheel of radiating lightning bolts or hooked spokes, which can read as the “black sun” or Sonnenrad;
  • number combinations such as 14 and 88, which are used as hate codes.

  The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) maintains a free online Hate Symbols Database that explains these and many more. As the ADL notes, many of these symbols also have older or innocent uses, and context matters. But a sigil you carry, display, or tattoo will be read in public by people who do not know your intent. If your design resembles a listed symbol, change it.

• Brands and logos. A sigil that closely resembles a well-known logo can be confusing and, if you sell or print it, can raise trademark problems. Change it.

• Sacred signs of others. If it looks like a religious symbol, a vèvè, or a sign from a closed tradition, change it.

• Letters and words. Sometimes a reduced sigil accidentally spells a word, often a rude one, or resembles a currency sign, as in the example in Method 1. Decide whether that bothers you. Usually a small change fixes it.

• Body parts. It happens more often than you would think. A sense of humor helps. So does a small change.

Where to go next

Go back to the beginner’s guide, read the history of magical signs, or learn how to charge a sigil safely. For rune-based designs, see bindrunes.