Tattoo Ideas & Tips: Text, Lettering, Script & Quotes

Before you start with a text tattoo, it’s probably more comforting to go with a tattoo artist who knows how to do lettering well. When in doubt, inquire. You'd be surprised that some tattooists don't do text tattoos.

• Handwriting: Windsong, Honey Script, Dear Joe etc.
• Script: ILS Script, Nina Script, Piel Script etc.
• New Age: Titillium Text, Monoment, Greenbeans etc.
• Old Skool: Tattoo, High On Fire, Tattoo Sailor etc.
• Gothic: Dearest, Headline Text, Blackletter etc.

Below are just some sick quotes (which I'm pretty fond of myself) for the little Zen master in you. Updated as and when I come across good ones that I've just got to share, feel free to comment and add on!

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Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
– Plato

The doer alone learneth.
– Friedrich Nietzsche

Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts.
– Buddha

Fall down seven times, get up eight.
– Japanese Proverb

Turn your face toward the sun and the shadows will fall behind you.
– Maori Proverb

Show me a hero, and I'll write you a tragedy.
– F. Scott Fitzgerald

Not all those who wander are lost.
– J.R.R. Tolkien

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
– Lao Tzu

Some may never live, but the crazy never die.
– Hunter S. Thompson

A unique way to word your text is ambigram. Ambigrams are essentially a play on word(s); they’re cleverly designed in a way that appears to have different readings, when read at different perspectives.

Take the extreme right image above as an example, it shows the word ‘Father’, when read upright as well as upside down. The image beside is trickier; it shows the word ‘Saint’ when upright and ‘Sinner’ when rotated.
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Some popular ambigram types are:

• Mirror
• Rotational
• Natural

You might want to get inked with a quote that you strongly believe in, they could be your motto in life, and a representation of your ideals or principles you adhere to.

Instead of tattooing a wall of texts, keep it short and sweet. While you may really like Nietzsche’s Twilight of The Idols, you probably shouldn’t get a couple of pages from it, on your body.

Pick out your desired excerpt and highlight the genius of it. Simply put, choose your favorite line. For example, if I liked this piece:

" The laws that keep us safe, these same laws condemn us to boredom. Without access to true chaos, we'll never have true peace. Unless everything can get worse, it won't get any better. "
– Chuck Palahniuk, Choke

For my tattoo, I would probably single out the sentence “Without access to true chaos, we'll never have true peace.”

Below are some examples that do not over-quote and are aesthetically pleasing:

Please, one word: Spell-check. You might have snorted to that, but seriously, ladies and gents. Nothing can be more upsetting than having mom’s name spelt wrong.

Most often, the client and tattooist share an equal blame in misspelled tattoos. As a tattoo artist, he/she should be as accurate as possible – after all, being meticulous is part of their forte. As a client, you should make sure to check yourself in the mirror to see if it’s the correct representation of what you’d imagined before the needle hits your skin.

The kind of attitude you’d like your tattoo to express is as important as spellchecking it. If you’re getting an endearing quote to remember your dearly departed grandma by, please do not go for a font like Dead Bitch (yes, it's a real font – the irony).

Choose a font fit for the feel you’re going for, prowl sites like DaFont.com to have a good look at the countless font styles available. Type the desired text(s) and have a preview of them in a couple of fonts you like, then narrow them down to that perfect one.

If you’re thinking of getting words or phrases in another language, please do some research. As exotic as they look, they could be an embarrassment to wear around as well.

Do not get it generated from online translation programs. Half the time, it doesn’t make much sense. Bear in mind that most words have double entendre, and you could be lucking out – getting the one that makes the least sense and the most mockery out of you.

Hanzi Smatter is an excellent place for verifying your Asian character tattoo. (It also goes to show how many people don’t actually know the meaning of what’s on their skin.)

Not all English phrases have an (exact) equivalent in Mandarin, Japanese or Korean etc. To translate them directly would sometimes warp the original meaning of the intended phrase or sentence.

The best solution really, is to actually ask someone who is a native speaker. Relax, if you know no one who’s such. There’s always THE practically ALL-KNOWING INTERNET! Get on forums dedicated to learning Thai or Sanskrit for example. Post a polite request asking for the correct translation and writing (this is important) of the word, phrase or sentence that you have in mind. Most forummers in these message boards are usually friendly and extremely helpful; remember to say “Thank you”!

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Tip: Blow up the text that you have so as to give your tattooist a clear idea of the character layout. This is especially important if your tattoo artist is unfamiliar (i.e. does not read or write in that particular language) with the language.

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