There are several different styles of signatures out there, from the simple to the mind-bogglingly stupid. It is my hope that this tutorial will help you learn how to make these signatures, and for you to learn how to put your own style into your creations.

The Pieces
Here are all of the characters, or pieces, as i call them, that you will need to start making Sigs.

The simplest characters:─│┌ ┐└ ┘├ ┤┬ ┴ ┼ these are generally used in fancy, or dull sigs. as you can see, they don't have much flavor, or they don't appeal to the eye as much.

The traditional characters:═║╔ ╗╚ ╝╠ ╣╦ ╩ ╬
At least 3 of these are included in just about every sig. I call these pieces the "Essentials"

The Accent characters:╒ ╕╘ ╛╞ ╡╤ ╪╓ ╖╙ ╜╟ ╢ ╫ ╨ ╥
These pieces are used in fancier sigs. They look much better than the traditional pieces. Most essentials can be replaced by these pieces.

Coloring

There are a LOT of colors out there, and a color code to go with all of them. This will show you the basics of coloring.

To color a letter/word/sig, you must put this code around what you want to color.

[hex=(color code]Insert what you want to color here.[/hex]

Here are some of the Basic color codes.
RED=FF0000
BLUE=0000FF
GREEN=00FF00
YELLOW=FFFF00
PINK=FF00FF
ORANGE=FF6600
BLACK=000000
WHITE=FFFFFF
GREY=888888

These codes can be altered to suit your color needs.

**To make colors darker, Make the letter/number go down the scale.
**To make your color lighter, make your letter/number go up the scale.

The scale, from lightest to darkest is as follows: 
F E D C B A 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 

So, using this scale, you can tell that DD0000 is a brighter red than 880000.

Sigs generally have spacers that the maker used to make the sig readable that you cannot see. they used the FFFFFF code to make them white.
So a portion of a sig could look something like this.(i'm going to put in astriks so you can see the coding)
[*hex=FF0000]╔╗[/hex][*hex=ffffff]─[/hex][*hex=ff0000]╦╗[/hex]

and here is what that would look like without the astriks.
╔╗─╦╗

Now here is what it would look like without "Taking out" the spacer.
╔╗─╦╗

it all depends on your personal preferance, and what the customer wants, on whether you have to take the spacer out or not.

Some common spacers:
─ ═ ╬ X ..

These are used because they are all the same size. they all can be intermixed as well.

 Making the Sig

I will be using the essentials for this sig.

What i do is i keep the pieces i will be using up at the top of the mail/post/journal entry so that it is easy to find what i need. You may also take a premade sig and copy the pieces you need out of that. I do that sometimes as well, just because it is easier.

═║╔ ╗╚ ╝╠ ╣╦ ╩ ╬
and we will be using ─ as a spacer because it does not look like any of the pieces we are using.

First, you need to know what you are making.


Originally Posted by Customer
I would like a sig that says "Jeffy" in Forest green.

thank you customer.

now we start to make the sig.
What you want to do is make the sig one letter at a time.
We will start by making the J. I am just going to make this a simple sig, then add accents later.
═║╔ ╗╚ ╝╠ ╣╦ ╩ ╬
═╦═
─║─
╚╝─
ok, we have our J. notice how i used the spacers on both sides of the J, that is so it will be even with the rest of the sig, and we won't have a major slant that will need to be fixed.

next, the E.
═║╔ ╗╚ ╝╠ ╣╦ ╩ ╬
═╦═╔
─║─╠
╚╝─╚
Whoops, thats too small. we should add some extra lines to make it more visible.
═║╔ ╗╚ ╝╠ ╣╦ ╩ ╬
═╦═╔═
─║─╠═
╚╝─╚═
There we go. always make sure that the sig looks nice as you make it.

Next, the F's. I will only be making one F, then copying it into the next place.
═║╔ ╗╚ ╝╠ ╣╦ ╩ ╬
═╦═╔═╔═
─║─╠═╠═
╚╝─╚═╩─

ok, now we copy it line by line.
═║╔ ╗╚ ╝╠ ╣╦ ╩ ╬
═╦═╔═╔═╔═
─║─╠═╠═
╚╝─╚═╩─

═║╔ ╗╚ ╝╠ ╣╦ ╩ ╬
═╦═╔═╔═╔═
─║─╠═╠═╠═
╚╝─╚═╩─

═╦═╔═╔═╔═
─║─╠═╠═╠═
╚╝─╚═╩─╩─

now we make the Y.
═║╔ ╗╚ ╝╠ ╣╦ ╩ ╬
═╦═╔═╔═╔═╗╔
─║─╠═╠═╠═╚╣
╚╝─╚═╩─╩─╚╝

ok, there we go.
═╦═╔═╔═╔═╗╔
─║─╠═╠═╠═╚╣
╚╝─╚═╩─╩─╚╝

now we meed to make it forest green, a darker green. Since green is 00FF00, and we want it darker, lets try 00DD00.
═╦═╔═╔═╔═╗╔
─║─╠═╠═╠═╚╣
╚╝─╚═╩─╩─╚╝

Nah, that didn't work. its too light. lets try even darker, like 009900.
═╦═╔═╔═╔═╗╔
─║─╠═╠═╠═╚╣
╚╝─╚═╩─╩─╚╝

Much better. there you go jeffy, your Forest green sig is all done!

now we "Package" the sig, or mail it to the customer.
we paste the sig into the mail, then put astriks into the hex code so that it doesn't change colors in the mail.
[*hex=009900]═╦═╔═╔═╔═╗╔
─║─╠═╠═╠═╚╣
╚╝─╚═╩─╩─╚╝[/hex]

I like to put what it looks like, then the colorless one, like so.
═╦═╔═╔═╔═╗╔
─║─╠═╠═╠═╚╣
╚╝─╚═╩─╩─╚╝

[*hex=009900]═╦═╔═╔═╔═╗╔
─║─╠═╠═╠═╚╣
╚╝─╚═╩─╩─╚╝[/hex]

And now Jeffy has his sig.