When you're planning a tattoo, you want something that will feel timeless. After all, a tattoo is permanent. As you scroll through page after page of illegible, dated, and frankly, sometimes strange tattoos, finding the right font and style can feel more like a process of elimination rather than simply choosing the design you like best.
You can make this process faster and way less painful by choosing from the best tattoo fonts instead of attempting to find the best font on your own.
Check out the best tattoo fonts for all different kinds of tattoos in this guide.
Best Tattoo Fonts – Our Top Picks
- Best Overall – Chicano
- Most Popular – Bandito
- Best for Numbers – Saint Merry
- Best for Men – Chicano Vol.2
- Best for Women – Kingside
- Best Cursive – Little Love
- Best for Names – Madelican
- Best for Quotes – Monastery
- Best Script – Fearless
- Best for Roman Numerals – Roman Greek
- Best for Words – Bugenvil
Best Tattoo Fonts
As designers, we've worked with a lot of fonts. Through our experience working with hundreds of fonts, we've developed a good eye for spotting the right font to communicate a particular feeling and which fonts tend to work best in different kinds of designs.
When you're choosing a font, it's not enough to just choose a font that looks good—it needs to be legible. This is especially true for tattoos, as your skin stretches and changes over time.
Choosing the right font for your tattoo is a way to ensure your ink stays legible and looks amazing for years to come.
Chicano
Best Tattoo Font Overall
The Chicano font offers an elegant, handwriting-inspired font that makes any tattoo feel personalized. It's perfect for names, such as the name of your child or a tribute to a loved one.
With uppercase and lowercase letters that connect seamlessly, enhanced by the accompanying swirls and long, twisted lines, this font is perfect for any tattoo or tattoo-inspired t-shirt, hoodie, or logo design.
Bandito
Most Popular for Tattoo Designs
In some ways, Bandito looks like a more spaced-out, pared-down version of Chicano.
Both feature swooping uppercase and lowercase letters and wavy lines, but Bandito's kerning gives it a slight readability edge. This is likely why it is so popular.
Bandito is a great choice for any tattoo or tattoo-inspired design that needs to be very easy to read, like your brand's name in a logo or a large sign on your shop's awning.
Saint Merry
Best Font for Number Tattoos
Saint Merry is a highly legible tattoo font that features easy-to-recognize, slightly medieval-inspired detached letters. This last point, the letters' separation from each other, is what makes it the best font for any tattoo that features numbers.
In tattoo text, it can be easy to confuse letters and numbers, as the cursive font can blur the distinction between them.
By keeping characters separate, as Saint Merry does, you can avoid this issue and ensure that any numbers in your design are not lost.
Chicano Vol.2
Best Tattoo Font for Men
Chicano Vol. 2 is a masculine take on the Chicano font. Like its predecessor, it features uppercase and lowercase letters and swooping lines, but this time, the lines terminate in sharp edges.
Choose Chicano Vol. 2 for any kind of edgy tattoo, like a motivational quote or a tribute to the toughest guy you know.
Kingside
Best for Women
Despite its name, Kingside is the perfect font for any tattoo with a feminine aesthetic. It's cursive-inspired but still has a cleanness and crispness that complements any delicate tattoo design.
Kingside is a sweet choice for a woman's tattoo. It's also a great option for a jewelry, purse, or art print design. Because its text is fairly thin, it's best for designs that will be viewed up close rather than from afar.
Little Love
Best Cursive Tattoo Font
Cursive fonts tend to be popular for tattoos because they mimic actual handwriting. Everybody's handwriting is unique, so choosing a handwriting-inspired font is a way to make a design feel personalized rather than generic.
Little Love is a dainty font with tall, thin letters. Despite being linked, the letters have a significant amount of negative space between them, making it a highly legible font. This makes Little Love ideal for any design that is primarily text, like a short phrase or sentence.
Madelican
Best Tattoo Font for Names
Although Madelican's letters are linked and share some design elements with cursive fonts, its letters are mostly similar to print handwriting. This, along with its significant size difference between uppercase and lowercase letters, makes it extremely easy to read, which makes it perfect for name tattoos.
Madelican is one of the best tattoo fonts for names because it works on just about any type of design. Use it on clothing designs, mugs, and personalized prints, as well as tattoos.
Monastery
Best Font for Quotes
Monastery is a great font for quotes because it does not resemble cursive handwriting. However, that doesn't mean it's without flair. Its oversized serifs and whimsical curves give it a fun, irreverent personality that makes it ideal for creative quotes.
Use Monastery for a design that's meant to be read rather than seen. By that, we mean graphic quotes for t-shirts, prints, tote bags, and, of course, large text-based tattoos.
Fearless
Best Script Tattoo Font
If you're looking for the best script tattoo font, look no further than Fearless. Fearless features tight, swooping letters decorated with long, curved lines. This ornate font has a royal feel to it, giving it the gravitas necessary for any official inscription.
Choose this font for any design that needs to look not just official but classical. It's a great choice for a custom stationery header or a family crest.
Roman Greek
Best Font for Roman Numerals
Roman numerals are a popular choice for tattoos and tattoo-inspired designs because they tend to feel a little more classy than Arabic numerals. For example, you might include the year you founded your business in its logo and choose Roman numerals.
Roman Greek is a great font for Roman numerals because it's crisp and distinctive. Roman numerals look a lot like letters, and choosing a font like this prevents any confusion between numerals and letters in your design.
Bugenvil
Best for Words
Bugenvil is an excellent choice when you want a strong text-based design. Its thick lines can make it feel heavy, which is ideal for designs that use multiple fonts to create a visual hierarchy.
It also works great for single-word designs because, despite its ornate look and feel, Bugenvil is easy to read. Its letters stand separately, and the font is not crowded by additional swoops or other design elements.
Frequently Asked Questions
What tattoo fonts age well?
The best tattoo fonts are fonts that will age well—in other words, fonts that are timeless, not trendy. A few examples of these fonts include:
- Chicano
- Roman Greek
- Bugenvil
What is the best font for simple tattoos?
Ornate and complex fonts like Fearless and Chicano Vol. 2 can be great for simple tattoos because they stand alone rather than compete with other design elements. With these fonts, the text is the design.
If these fonts are still too bold and you want something even simpler, a print-like font is ideal. Choose a font like Roman Greek or Monastery for a tattoo that's simple but not boring.
What is the best font for small tattoos?
The best fonts for small tattoos tend to be fonts with thin letters, such as Kingside or Little Love. Smaller, thinner fonts tend to be more legible than thicker fonts at smaller sizes because, visually, negative space helps the eye decipher a design's letters.
What is the best tattoo font for names?
Madelican is one of the best tattoo fonts for names. There are a few reasons why, such as:
- Legibility
- Size hierarchy between uppercase and lowercase
Other good fonts for names include Fearless and Little Love.
What is the best tattoo font for quotes?
Monastery is one of the best tattoo fonts for quotes because it is very easy to read. With quote designs, simple, legible fonts are ideal because, with an ornate font, the quote can get lost.
What is the best tattoo font for Bible verses?
Because Bible verses are essentially quotes, Monastery is a great choice for them. Other good choices for Bible verse tattoos include:
- Roman Greek. This antiquities-inspired font is a nod to the era that produced the Bible.
- Fearless. The Word of God deserves a strong, inspiring font.
- Bandito. For a font that has some flair but is still easy to read, Bandito has you covered.
