Don’t like how you sign your name? Hire help.
NEW YORK — Doctors, lawyers, celebrities: There’s a new cosmetic surgery, of sorts, that has snared them all.
By that, we mean handing over money to hire a calligrapher for a fresh take on writing one’s own name in cursive. With a pen or another writing implement. On paper.
A corner of Tiktok, Instagram and other social media is dedicated to signature design, and it’s keeping practitioners busy.
Priscilla Molina in Los Angeles does a minimum of 300 custom signatures a month, offering packages that include up to three ways to sign, limitless drafts or a new set of initials. She charges $10 to $55, using the motto: “Where originality meets legacy.”
Molina said her Planet of Names clients include professionals and famous people in search of new ways to sign autographs, though her lips are sealed on the identities of high-profile signature seekers.
Molina said people generally come to her for a signature simply because they’re tired of the way they sign their names.
“They’re not happy with their signatures. They don’t relate to who they are. They don’t give the message they want to convey to the world,” she said.
Molina and other signature doctors promise a range of styles. For Molina, that includes but is not limited to elegant, subtle, dramatic, sharp, classic, artistic, condensed, curvy, legible — or even illegible.
She and others offer templates and stencils, encouraging clients to practice their newfound signatures, with results in a short couple of weeks if they put in the time.
Sonia Palamand, of St. Louis, Missouri, began noodling with calligraphy in middle school. She drums up business on Tiktok, charging $35 for three signatures while promoting herself in videos.
“It’s a way for people to reinvent themselves. The way that you present yourself on the outside can affect how you see yourself on the inside,” she said. “It’s also an artistic pursuit.”
Artistic, for sure, but what happens when a client’s signature must be matched with a signature on file? Think voter rolls, passports, credit cards, wills or financial papers.
There’s the option of reverting to an old signature, of course, though some happy customers choose to update their worlds of signatures on file to match the new.
But are the new signatures somehow easier for fraudsters to replicate?
James Green, a certified document examiner who has testified in more than 140 legal cases around the world, went through the customer experience at one of the signature design companies. He paid for a package that included three options.
“At this time, I can’t throw the signature design services under the bus,” he said. “However, the verdict is still out. If clients request a simplistic signature style or limit it to their initials, obviously, the opportunity for fraud increases.”
In Miami, cargo pilot Juan Herrera decided on a signature makeover after his wife gave him a $750 Montblanc pen and he realized “my signature looked like my daughter’s signature in fourth grade.”
He saw a post on Facebook from Vipartni Calligraphy Studio, and opted to pay about $99 for 10 signatures from which to choose.
He received practice sheets and soon became proficient in the one he picked.
“I use it every day,” he said. “I also use it for legal documents.”