The paper describes the evolution of the employment of graphically marked out words by Yu. V. Trifonov in his works, both early and late ones. Yu. Trifonov experiments both with quantitative characteristics (way of marking, quantity, size) and qualitative ones (functional load of a graphically marked fragment). A singular use of a graphically marked word is followed by the creation of his artistic device, now known as a characteristic feature of the writer’s
idiostyle. He experiments with different ways of graphical marking of words in his texts by the use of spacing, inverted commas, capital letters, italics, and bold type. There is an increase in the number of words with spacing and fragment size. Moreover, the devices can be «mixed», when there are several means of graphical marking used in one text.