Choosing the perfect tattoo calligraphy font can be challenging. The font you choose will affect how your tattoo looks and what it communicates.
Imagine spending time and money on a tattoo, only to discover that the selected font doesn't reflect your vision. It's either too bold, too delicate, illegible, or simply doesn't align with your style. This can lead to regret and the need for expensive cover-ups or removal treatments.
In this guide, we’ll look at the best tattoo calligraphy fonts, what we like about them, and how you can incorporate them into your own unique designs.
Best Tattoo Calligraphy Fonts – Our Top Picks
- Best Overall – Chicano
- Best Gangster – Gangsta
- Most Popular – Blessed
- Best Fancy – Salvators
- Best Blackletter – Black Ink
- Best Cursive – Maldito
- Best Bold – Lordish Blackletter
- Best for Script Lettering – Familia
- Best Swirly – Fearless
- Best for Chicano Lettering – Hustler
- Best Modern – Wildstyle
- Best Feminine- Bandito
- Best Elegant – Kingside
Best Tattoo Calligraphy Fonts
We’ve tested numerous fonts for calligraphy tattoos, ranking them based on style, detail, and ability to customize. This list includes popular picks among tattoo artists and designers, as well as hidden gems that offer unique aesthetics.
1. Chicano
Best Overall Tattoo Calligraphy Font
Make beautiful and unique tattoos featuring script lettering using the Chicano font.
The font includes elegant uppercase and lowercase letters and ligatures. The swirly swashes are a great way to make your designs stand out.
The flowy letters and stroke contrast create a unique look perfect for tattoo design, signage, logo, and t-shirt designs.
2. Gangsta
Best Gangster Tattoo Font
The Gangsta blackletter font features sharp angles, stark stroke contrast, and ornate swashes.
It’s perfect for creating bold and edgy designs for gothic-style tattoos for men, logos, branding, posters, and shirts.
3. Blessed
Popular Font for Traditional Tattoos
The Blessed font is perfect for creating classic American tattoos.
The detailed letters and sophisticated flourishes lend an old-school look to any personal or commercial design project.
You can use it for creating tattoos with names, quotes, and numbers. Or use it for designing a tattoo business’s logo, signage, and business cards.
4. Salvators
Best Calligraphy Font for Fancy Tattoos
The beautiful Salvators font will add a touch of elegance and sophistication to your creations.
The intricate blackletter font features gothic elements that give your invitations, cards, shop signs, and website designs a regal look.
5. Black Ink
Best Blackletter Tattoo Calligraphy Font
The Black Ink tattoo font features elegant swashes that are perfect for adding a hand-lettered touch to your projects. It's perfect for creating vintage designs for branding, logos, apparel, and posters.
6. Maldito
Best Tattoo Font for Cursive Writing
Consider the Maldito font if you want a legible font that still leaves a strong impression.
It’s a modern take on traditional-style tattoos that’ll help you add a stylish touch to everything from urban typography to logos.
7. Lordish Blackletter
Best Calligraphy Font for Bold Tattoos
If you want a tattoo font that conveys a sense of majesty and tradition, consider the Lordish Blackletter font.
The tall, angular letterforms will lend your designs an old-fashioned charm. The Old English font has three weights – thin, light, and regular so you can use it for everything from headings to quotes.
8. Familia
Best Calligraphy Font for Script Tattoos
The Familia font is a popular lettering font used for creating highly stylized designs.
The contrasting stroke widths of the letterforms and the decorative flourishes create a dramatic effect. It’s perfect for designing body art and brand assets for a tattoo studio.
9. Fearless
Best Swirly Tattoo Font
Use the Fearless script font to create everything from name tattoos to typography and tattoo business assets.
The font features thick and thin strokes that meld beautifully to create elegant letterforms. The swashes, alternates, and ligatures included offer you plenty of opportunities for customization.
10. Hustler
Best Chicano Lettering Font
The gangster-style Hustler font features strong curves and distinct serifs to make your designs stand out.
The elaborate and intricate swirls are perfect for creating unique calligraphy. Use it for designing anything that needs to evoke a feeling of strength and resilience.
11. Wildstyle
Best Modern Tattoo Calligraphy Font
Consider the Wildstyle font if you want to make typography or branding assets that balance the new with the old masterfully.
The chicano font features fancy swashes and smooth letterforms, making it perfect for your script lettering needs.
12. Bandito Script
Best Font for Feminine Tattoos
The Bandito font is a must-download if your tattoo designs need a feminine touch.
It features smooth curves and elegant glyphs that’ll take the stylish quotient of your projects up a notch. It’s my top pick for creating tattoos for women.
13. Kingside
Best Font for Elegant Tattoos
If you want to add a modern hand-lettered feel to your tattoo designs, look no further than the Kingside font.
The elegant, flowy font features more minimal decorative features than traditional tattoo fonts. So, it’s perfect for making trendy designs for apparel, signage, and website branding.
Best Free Tattoo Calligraphy Fonts
You may want to try a few different font styles before zeroing in on your dream font. So I put together the best free fonts to download for personal use.
14. Calling Angels
Best Free Script Tattoo Font
The Calling Angels font is perfect for creating words and quotes for tattoos. The font features stylish script lettering that’ll take your designs to the next level.
15. Bellino
Best Free Cursive Tattoo Font
The Bellino font features thick and smooth cursive letters that’ll add a touch of elegance and charm to your designs. It’s perfect for creating legible tattoos with quotes.
16. Acuentre
Best Free Gothic Tattoo Font
The Acuentre blackletter font features ornamental letters and bold swashes, making it a perfect choice for gothic design projects.
Tattoo Calligraphy Fonts FAQs
What is a tattoo calligraphy font?
Tattoo calligraphy fonts combine the beauty of traditional calligraphy with the boldness of tattoo design.
The fonts come in many styles, including chicano, gothic, gangster, and classic. Their primary objective is to showcase a person’s beliefs and personality artistically.
They typically have exaggerated curves and ornamental touches such as swashes, flourishes, and swirls.
How to use tattoo calligraphy fonts in designs?
Tattoo calligraphy is becoming increasingly popular for expressing a strong, meaningful message.
Here are the best ways to use them in your next project:
- Create typography for body art featuring words, numbers, and quotes.
- Design logos, business cards, signage, and other branding materials for tattoo studios.
- Make t-shirt and poster designs for masculine brands.
- Use them for portfolio website headings and social media posts for tattoo artists.
- Create art for invitations, stickers, wall art, and other gifts for tattoo lovers.
How to use tattoo calligraphy fonts in Procreate?
It’s easy to access stylistic alternates in graphic design software such as Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop.
But if you use Procreate to create tattoo designs or learn lettering on your iPad, you may wonder how to get those special characters.
Use a free online font manager like Fontcloud that makes using glyphs in Procreate a breeze.