Guide: How to Design a Headstone
A headstone is a timeless marking place for friends and family to visit and pay their respects to someone they have lost. Because a headstone is such a permanent memorial, you may find the task of designing a headstone to be daunting or intimidating. We completely understand our customers’ desire to get their headstone design exactly right. As you plan your loved one’s memorial, you want to ensure that their resting spot accurately memorializes who they were, and what they meant to you and your family.
HeadstoneHub offers a wide variety of headstone designs. We provide you with an array of options when it comes to material, color, size, shape, and personalization. There are several main factors to consider before you begin the headstone design process.
Where will this headstone be placed?
Most people don’t realize that every cemetery is unique in their restrictions for headstones and burial plots. Before you make any purchasing decisions on a headstone, please be sure to contact the cemetery that you plan to bury your loved one in. The three essential questions you should ask are:
What is the maximum allowed height of the headstone?
What width and depth of the base of the stone is allowed?
Do you restrict any materials?
They will provide you with the material, size and height regulations for their cemetery. After you speak with your chosen cemetery and you get your questions answered, you can move on to making key decisions for your headstone design.
The Headstone Design Essentials: Size, Shape, Material, and Engraving
To help you get started, we recommend taking these four factors into consideration:
Size:
Think about who the headstone is for. If you are designing a headstone for a single member of your family, you may consider smaller headstone options such as flat headstones, slant headstones, or single upright headstones. If you are designing a companion memorial (for two people) or a family memorial (for multiple family members), you will need to select a larger headstone.
Single headstone designs offer a ton of options for personalization. If you would like to include a more elaborate carving, or a longer epitaph, you may consider an upright headstone design -- upright headstones provide more surface area to work with, as opposed to say a slant headstone.
If you’re looking for something smaller, flat headstones are a very classic option for a single memorial. Keep in mind that flat headstone designs will need to be less intricate, because the available design space is more limited.
Shape:
Once you’ve decided upon a size for your headstone, you have a little bit of artistic license to design a shape of your choosing.
Below you will find examples of some of the more classic headstone shape options. That said, you can usually request any type of custom shape for your headstone. Keep in mind though that the more angles on a headstone, the more expensive it usually is.
Material & Color:
Size and shape are two of the most important decisions you will make, largely because they will be influenced by the cemetery’s regulations. As previously mentioned, some cemeteries will also have restrictions on the type of material that your headstone is allowed to be. Once you have selected a material that is in accordance with your cemetery’s guidelines, you can further customize your headstone design by choosing a unique stone color, such as the examples below.:
Engraving:
The final element for any headstone is the engraving. To add a personal touch to your headstone design, you may opt to include a carving or an epitaph.
Some of the most popular carving designs that you will see on headstones include religious symbols, flowers, hearts, and plants - but you can make the carving design whatever you’d like it to be. HeadstoneHub is committed to working with you to make sure your engraving fits the vision that you have for your loved one’s memorial.
We hope this guide was a helpful starting point for you as you begin to design your headstone. For more insight into what the possibilities are for headstone designs, please be sure to check out these two guides: “How Much Does a Headstone Cost?” and 5 Easy Steps to Buying a Headstone