How to design your own headstone: a step-by-step guide

Most headstones are designed by a draughtsperson at a monument company, from a sketch and a list of words the family handed over at the counter. The family then sees the design once, as a proof, after the decisions have been made. Designing the headstone yourself turns that around: you settle the type, the stone, the words and the layout at your own pace, and you arrive at the monument company with a drawing to quote from instead of a conversation to start. This article is the order to work in.

Can you design your own headstone?

Yes. Designing and making are different jobs. The cemetery decides what may stand on the grave, a fabricator cuts the stone, and someone sets it, but the decisions in between, what type of marker, which granite, what it says and how the words sit on the face, belong to the family. A monument company will take a finished design from you as readily as a sketch, because a dimensioned drawing with the inscription written out is something it can quote exactly.

What you cannot do is design in a vacuum. Two things constrain every headstone before the first word is chosen: the cemetery's rules and the marker's size. Start there.

Step 1: Ask the cemetery what it allows

Every cemetery, and often every section within it, has rules about markers: which types are permitted, the maximum width, height and thickness, which materials and colours, whether a base counts toward the height, whether a photograph or a vase is allowed, and what the application must include. A design that ignores them is redrawn at the end, after the family has grown attached to it.

Call the office before you draw anything and ask for the rules in writing. Our checklist of cemetery rules lists the questions, including the ones that matter in a Muslim section.

Step 2: Choose the marker type and its size

There are four common types. A flat marker lies level with the grass. A bevel is a low wedge whose face tilts toward the reader. A slant is a taller wedge that stands on a pad or base. An upright is a vertical tablet, the die, on a base. Lawn sections and most Muslim sections ask for flat or bevel markers; uprights are the classic shape where they are permitted. The differences, the usual sizes of each and what Muslim sections tend to allow are in flat, bevel, slant or upright.

Pick the type the cemetery allows and then the size, in inches, inside its limits. Size decides everything that follows: how many lines of text fit, how large the letters can be, whether there is room for a second language or a photograph.

Step 3: Choose the stone and the finish

Granite is the usual choice in the United States because it holds a polish and sharp lettering for generations outdoors; marble is softer and weathers faster. Within granite the colour matters for legibility: on dark, polished stone the cut letters show pale against the surface and read from a distance, while on light granite the letters usually need a paint fill to stand out. The comparison is in granite or marble.

Decide the finish at the same time. A polished face, a honed (matte) face and a rough rock-pitched edge each change the look and the price, and some cemeteries restrict polished stone. If the cemetery allows cast bronze, remember that its lettering is raised rather than cut, so the foundry's letter sizes set the layout.

Step 4: Decide the words

Families spend longest on the inscription, rightly. Work from the fixed to the optional:

1. The name, written the way the person was known and the way the cemetery recorded it. Check the spelling against a document, not from memory.
2. The dates, birth and death, in the form the family prefers: full dates, years only, or both calendars. How to show a Hijri date alongside the Gregorian one is explained in Hijri and Gregorian dates on a headstone.
3. A relationship line, such as "beloved mother and grandmother", if there is room.
4. An epitaph, a short line of scripture, a phrase or a few words of the family's own. Shorter reads better in stone, and a line cut small to fit is a line the next generation will struggle to read.

For a Muslim headstone the common phrases, with their Arabic, transliteration and meaning, are collected in the words on a Muslim headstone. For a mother's stone, headstone inscriptions for a mother has a list with the text in hand. If any of the words are in Arabic, Urdu or Farsi, read getting Arabic, Urdu and Farsi inscriptions right before you go further; the common errors are made at exactly this step.

Step 5: Lay out the face

With the size fixed and the words chosen, the layout is a matter of proportion, and a few habits of the trade produce most of the good results.

• One thing is largest. Usually the surname or the full name. The dates are the next size down and the epitaph the smallest. Three sizes are enough; more looks busy.
• Leave a margin. Lettering that runs to the edge looks crowded and is harder to cut cleanly. Keep a clear band around the face and a wider one at the bottom than at the top.
• Fewer lines, larger letters. A flat marker is read from standing height, looking down through grass and rain. An upright is read from a few feet away. If the words do not fit at a readable size, cut words rather than letter height.
• Centre, or align deliberately. Centred lines are the convention. Left-aligned blocks can work on a wide companion stone with two names; mixing the two on one face rarely does.
• Two scripts, two zones. When the stone carries Arabic or Urdu with English, give each script its own band rather than interleaving them line by line. Right-to-left text set in the same block as left-to-right text is where mistakes creep in.
• Keep ornament to the edges. A border, a small motif at the top or a vine down one side frames the words. Ornament in the middle of the face competes with them.

Sketch it at the real proportions of the face, or lay it out in a tool that shows the stone at its true size, then stand back and read it as a stranger would.

Step 6: A photograph or an emblem

Laser-etched portraits on polished black granite are common on American headstones and some cemeteries allow a ceramic photograph instead. If you want one, choose a sharp, well-lit picture with a plain background. Portraits are uncommon on Muslim headstones, and many Islamic cemeteries disallow them; families more often choose calligraphy, a geometric border or a botanical motif, as described in Muslim headstones for graves. Whatever you choose, check the cemetery's rule on images before it goes on the drawing.

Step 7: Check the design as a proof

Print the face at full size if you can, or at least at a known scale, and read it slowly. Check every date against a document. Have someone who reads each language read the inscription aloud. Measure the drawing against the cemetery's limits one more time, including the base if there is one. Then put it away for a day and read it again; every correction is cheaper now than after the stencil is cut.

Free headstone design tools, templates and apps

A search for a free headstone design template returns mostly printable outlines on pages that have nothing to do with memorials. Several monument companies offer an online designer, which is useful for seeing their catalogue but produces a design that lives on their site and is priced by them.

Memorial Studio is the third kind. The studio is free to use with an account while you design: you describe the stone in a sentence or build it by hand, choose the marker type and dimensions in whole inches, pick from eleven photographic granite and marble finishes or a cast bronze faceplate, place each inscription on the face in English, Arabic, Urdu or Farsi, and turn the stone in 3D with the lettering recessed to the depth you set. You pay only when you want the files to send on, with a one-time export pass or a monthly Studio subscription. Prices are on the pricing section of the home page.

Can you make the headstone yourself?

People also ask whether they can build a headstone at home, out of concrete, wood or a found stone. In most American cemeteries the answer is no for a permanent marker: the rules specify granite, marble or bronze, set on a foundation by the cemetery's crew or an approved setter, because the crew has to mow around it and the cemetery answers for it if it falls. A home-made marker is usually removed. Cemeteries do generally allow a temporary marker until the permanent stone is set; ask the office what else is permitted. Designing the stone yourself and having a fabricator cut it is the version of "making it yourself" that the cemetery will accept.

What to hand over when the design is done

A finished design travels as a dimensioned drawing with the inscription as artwork: the front and side elevations with every measurement labelled, the material and finish, the lettering with its sizes, and each script as outlines so that nobody retypes it. That drawing goes to the cemetery office for approval and to the monument company for a quote. What each file is for, and the questions to ask the fabricator, are in what to send your fabricator; how to compare the quotes that come back is in what a headstone costs; and if you still need a company that cuts Arabic well, Islamic headstones near me explains where to look.

If you would rather hand the finished design to one company for the rest, Muslim Serenity Stones & Grave Markers takes it through cemetery approval, fabrication and placement for families in New Jersey and across the continental United States.

Start with one sentence

Write down the marker type and size the cemetery allows, the stone, and the words, in that order. Then open the studio, describe the stone in a sentence, and move the words until they read the way the family wants. The dimensioned PDF it exports is the drawing the cemetery asks for and the artwork the fabricator cuts from, and the design stays yours whoever makes the stone.