//Draw string rotated clockwise 90 degrees.
AffineTransform at = new AffineTransform();
at.setToRotation(Math.PI/2.0);
g2d.setTransform(at);
g2d.drawString("aString", x, y);
// Draw string rotated counter-clockwise 90 degrees.
at = new AffineTransform();
at.setToRotation(-Math.PI/2.0);
g2d.setTransform(at);
g2d.drawString("aString", x, y);