While you can design a tattoo with (almost) any font, there are some fonts that will give your tattoos a truly eye-catching touch. Tattoo fonts on this list vary from those containing exotic symbols and detailed, illustrated glyphs to elegant handwriting fonts. With a few exceptions, all fonts on this list are for personal use only, which means you can use them to design a tattoo for yourself, but for any kind of commercial purpose you’ll have to contact the font designer and purchase a license. Of course, these fonts can be used in all kinds of graphic design projects, not just for tattoos, and who knows – maybe they’ll inspire you to create your own font.
1. Ananda Namaste
Blackletter is a bold, Gothic-style font that comes in two variants – standard and outline. It’s also available for commercial use and can be downloaded in TTF format. Designed by Dieter Steffmann, Blackletter is a great font for anyone who wants a somewhat traditional yet visually arresting tattoo.
Tribal tattoos are always popular, so you can’t go wrong with this tattoo font. It is a sharp-looking font also available for commercial use. It comes in two styles; both are TTF files. Your tattoo will be legible and interesting enough to get attention.
Bombora uses a style similar to tribal designs, but with thicker strokes that resemble a brush. It’s an OTF font that will look equally great in tattoos, headlines, or on posters.
6. Delinquente
Download
Mardian is a classic, sophisticated script font with ornamental initials, so it could very well be used as a monogram font, too. The demo version supports some extended characters and comes in TTF format. For commercial usage rights you’ll have to purchase the full font.
Medieval Scribish is an all-caps tattoo font with an artistic and slightly medieval feel. Good news – it’s free for commercial use! Download the TTF file and start working on your awesome tattoo design.
Unzialish looks classy, a bit exotic, slightly elvish and 100% appropriate for your new tattoo. This TTF font is also free for commercial use and it supports some extended characters.
Speaking of elvish… Tengwar Annatar is a script font completely inspired by the Elvish language from the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. As such, it’s a perfect font for all fantasy-lovers and Tolkien fans who are planning to get a tattoo. It’s also free for commercial use and available as a TTF font in four styles.
14. Brother Tattoo
Brother Tattoo is a handwritten tattoo font with a strong retro feel. It features interesting swashes and supports extended characters. It’s available as a TTF font for personal use only.
16. Death in the Shadow
This font features thick brush strokes and wide swashes on uppercase characters. It’s a TTF font that would look great as a tattoo, since it’s very readable and quite attractive.
Vid’s Norse is a TTF font that uses Nordic runes instead of Latin characters, so it’s a perfect tattoo font for the Viking in you. It’s also free for commercial use and looks sharp both on screen and, presumably, skin.
Crosses are a popular motif in tattoo design, and this font aims to collect them all to make creating tattoos easier. Who knew there were so many different types of crosses? Now you can try them all in TTF format.
20. Glagolitsa
Another special font that will surely make people ask you what your tattoo means. Glagolitsa (spelled “glagoljica” in Croatian and Serbian) is an actual alphabet – in fact, it’s the oldest Slavic alphabet that was used from the 9th century up until the Middle Ages. This font makes it possible to use the Glagolitic script in your designs and documents. It’s a TTF font and it’s free for commercial use.
22. Genzsch Et Heyse
Silent Reaction is a handwriting font with clean lines and a great flow that makes it legible. This TTF font works well in tattoos, headlines and basically anything you want, but it’s only for personal use.
27. Hello Sailor
Butterflies are also common in tattoos, and this TTF font contains a dozen different designs for you to choose from. It’s available only for personal use.
29. Dragon is Coming
This stylish script font with long, calligraphic swashes makes any tattoo look fancy, but it’s especially appropriate for quotes or names of your loved ones in a tattoo design. It’s an OTF font with support for extended characters.
Beech is an excellent choice for a tattoo font if you want to create a mysterious, exotic design. It’s a decorative TTF font with very thick strokes. While the lowercase characters are mostly legible, the uppercase ones are quite tricky, so be prepared for questions like “What does your tattoo say?”.
If you are into rock and metal, VTKS Rock Garage will perfectly embody that spirit in the form of a tattoo that will turn many heads. The rough edges, dark theme and the overall styling with a bruised negative space make this font worth the attention. This tattoo font is free for personal use, and downloads as Zip file which can be extracted into the TTF format.
33. Visitation
If your projects demand to look a touch poetic, Angel Tears could be the right tattoo font for you. Sporting a tattoo-style that makes a striking match with ink, it appears pleasing to the eyes. The letterforms feature alternating thick and thin strokes which are elegantly colored-in to give the impression that they have been sketched out. And it’s this sketchy design that makes it sport both vintage and rugged appearance simultaneously.
