Appropriate Tattoo Lettering
A lot of tattoos incorporate lettering in some form and often tattoo lettering plays an integral part in pulling the design together. That's why choosing the right tattoo lettering is very important. Choose the wrong type and your design will look awful no matter how nice the rest of your design is.
You also need to choose your artist carefully as not every artist will be able to do lettering properly. Yes, believe it or not lettering properly is a skill all unto itself. You have to work with your artist to make sure that you get something you are happy with in the end.
Font
When you are choosing tattoo lettering it has to correspond with the design you have chosen. If it is a fun and playful piece then a playful and colorful script is fine. If on the other hand you are having a more serious piece, such as a memorial tattoo, then you should choose something more formal.
You can go through any word processing program for fonts that you like and try out what the words you want will look like. Type out the whole thing and make sure that you like how each individual letter looks. It may surprise you how different some of the letters in one type of font can look.
The Artist
The artist you choose is fairly important. If your artist is not confident or has not mastered tattoo lettering then this may not be the artist for your piece. Talk to the artist about their area of expertise. Ask them how they feel about the type of font that you have decided on and if they would prefer you used something else.
As a layperson you may not have the best judgment on what will look nice with your tattoo in the long term. Trust the artist when they steer you away from a particular type of tattoo lettering. If possible have a look at previous work they have done involving tattoo lettering to get a good idea of what they are good at.
Color
Most of the time people think only of black and gray when it comes to tattoo lettering. You can choose colored script if your tattoo is a light hearted one. In fact it may look better with a little color in it. Again you want to discuss this with your artist and ask their opinion. They are the artist and can probably see things differently from you.
