I was looking through a book in Foyles earlier this week on Helvetica, and noticed that someone had had the name tattooed along their forearms in the typeface. I remember thinking it looked "ok" but not much better.

Problem is that it is fairly unlikely that a tattooist will appreciate some of the subtly in your chosen typeface, and may have difficulty replicating its dimensions and spacing in ink under your skin.

Also bear in mind that the skin on your arm moves and distorts quite dramatically. I have a geometric design that runs from shoulder to wrist, and a twist of my wrist distorts the design greatly from wrist to elbow. I knew this would happen and designed it in such a way, with the help of my artist, to make it part OF the design itself. I think that typographic tattoo are inherently going to risk looking wrong due to distortion for large periods of time. That is not even taking into consideration how your body will age with time. Take this into account, and try transferring a design to your arm to see what happens in normal movement.

Another thing to take into consideration is trapping. Ink can spread slightly under your skin over time, and different parts of your arm may be liable to spread at different rates (this is especially true if you are going to have a multiple sitting with your artist - their mood and therefore the execution of their craft will vary between sittings). Be careful therefore when choosing serifed typeface with fine detailing, and bear this in mind when deciding how large your tattoo will be overall.

Remember to take into account how your tattoo will fade too, especially if you are having shading or colour work.

Check out this site - you will find loads of stories and photos, and I believe there galleries have a specific section on typographic tattoos. Those here of a nervous disposition may not want to follow the link, by the way.

http://www.bmezine.com/

Is this the one? Originally at the ATypI site, but now only on the way back machine...

http://web.archive.org/web/20020622041442/http://www.atypi.org/tparty/news/stories/PIC00019.JPG

Documentation of a tattoo designed by type designer
Joachim Müller-Lanc

I'd go with Hangul instead, for the sake of celebrating writing system excellence.

hhp

Well, here's my first and only. They do wander and stretch quite a bit - kinda nice since it's everything I tell my students *not* to do ;-) Sorry for the Helvetica, hhp.

>Helvetica served as anesthesia

LOL. The worst thing about the wrist is that the tendons wreak holy hell on the letters.

Back to what I was considering getting.

http://www.kylehildebrant.com/downloads/tattoo_idea.pdf

This would be quite large, Im considering about 8" in length.

What do you guys think?

hildebrant.

Yves asked me to post a photo of my arm. Here it is.

:bites tongue on bad joke about 8 inch tattoos and the body parts they should go on:

One of the guys who works at the best café in Vancouver, possibly the world, had MORRISSEY tatoo'd up his forearm in approx. 140pt Copperplate Gothic. Earlier this year he got bored with the typeface and had the design gone over, and longer wedge serifs and some careful decorative elements added. I was quite impressed by how thoughtfully it was done, even if having the name of a pop singer on your arm is more than a bit stupid.

The best tatoo I've ever seen was on a friend's back: German late mediaeval woodcuts of the seven deadly sins.

•••• David, is that real? Or some nifty marker work? What happens if you gain a lot of weight? Do they become just plain parallel lines?

25 hours! How many tattooists worked shifts? :-) It is amazingly straight for something done freehand.
People often forget that regret works both ways.

Karen, it wasn't one sitting, I'd have passed out! The longest I sat for was 8 hours, but it was done in 3-4 hour segments over a period of a few months.

JFP, it is capped at the top of my shoulder so its the entire arm, minus the hand. There is one on my leg too ( http://www.typographer.com/brighton.jpg ) and on my ear but I think perhaps you saw both those last year at St Martins?

You mentioned the vespa was your first tattoo... does that mean there are more, JFP?

To Yves and only to him*: Come to Vancouver conference and I will show you! ;-)

*I'm pretty sure that you will not came, hehe. ;-)

Those definitions dont work for me. I prefer this one, from dict.org:

* showing marked and often playful or irritating evasiveness or reluctance to make a definite or committing statement; "a politician coy about his intentions"

:P

Perhaps I should have deleted the "irritating" portion of the definition for the sake of illustrating my intentions rather than maintaining dictionary accuracy.

Just to be clear here, I meant coy as in playful avoidance, nothing else!

I have one. a modified version of Demuth

Hum, well... which version of the Neue, Adobe or Linotype?

So, if cou could / should choose a Typeface / Font to get a tattoo set in, what would it be, then.?
( Beside 'Sailor Jerry', by Cubanica.. )

What do you think of 'Dalliance', as a choice for 'Tattoo Type'.?

I think the standard answer to this one is "Brian Bonislawsky, Astigmatic One Eye"

So what's it going to say? Lorem Ipsum? Quo usque tandem abutere?

Wasn't there another one too, Joseph?

P.S. David, do you mind posting your Typophile T pic
you had on your site a while ago? Your tattoo is truly
wikkid. Not mine, it's the girlie kind. My wife likes
it (it was a birthday present of hers), but my six-
year-old daughter wishes I had chosen the colourful
huge tiger...

My best true typographic tat story is an acquaintance of mine who tried to toughen up his image by getting his last name across his shoulders in "Olde English" - "Thompson" - Once it was done he looked at it in the mirror and the gangster tattooist had done "Thopson"

So he had it tattooed over with a low-rider.

>>Once it was done he looked at it in the mirror and the gangster tattooist had done "Thopson"

Don't know if its true or not, but I heard about a skinhead who tried to enhance his hardman image by tattooing 'skins' on his forehead.
Unfortunately, he did it himself, in the mirror, and to everyone else it said 'sniks'

Tell us, Jean Fran

coy adj. coy