Of course, you are free to choose any size and style for your personal seal, but if you are feeling a bit lost in the variety of options, we’ve compiled data from actual hanko orders to create show you the most common choices made by our customers.
Mitome-in styles
As you can see, Insoutai is the most common choice for carving one’s Kanji name for mitome-in. It offers the best legibility while still looking more hand-drawn and stylized. The runner up is Souintai, which is also highly legible.
Ginko-in Styles
For Ginko-in, our customers most commonly choose Tenshotai, which is more stylized and old-school/official-looking than other fonts. It also makes it easier to customize certain elements of the seal, in order to ensure that it is unique. A small minority opt for Insoutai for a more unique look, or Kointai for improved legibility. These numbers also apply to seals written horizontally, although it is a less common choice for ginko-in written in Kanji.
Jitsu-in Styles
Jitsu-in have the highest requirement to be unique to the individual, which means that the characters get slightly manipulated from their standard shape, usually by changing the scale of the character or stretching brush strokes to the edge of the seal. Insoutai is the most complex writing style, and is best suited for these highly-personalized seals, where uniqueness takes precedence over legibility. Insoutai takes second place, with Kointai, Gyoshotai and Reishotai sharing last place.
