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.
Best Tattoo Fonts in 2020
1. Ananda Namaste
This beautiful font was inspired by Devanagari Sanskrit scripts and designed by Ananda K. Maharjan. It contains Latin characters, but the characteristic “overline” gives it an exotic look. Unlike other fonts on this list, Ananda Namaste is free for commercial use. You can download it from the designer’s deviantART page in TTF format.
2. Blackletter
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.
3. Tribal
4. Bombora
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.
5. Nurkholis
Nurkholis is a fantastic font that takes lowercase characters of the Latin alphabet and combines them in a creative way to make your writing look like Arabic script. If you’re a fan of Arabic calligraphy, this font is perfect for you, whether you want to use it for tattoos or other projects. Nurkholis is a TTF font.
6. Delinquente
Delinquente is a professional-looking script font with rich swashes. It’s great if you want to make your tattoo noticeable and readable. It’s available as TTF, but only the demo version is free (it lacks some special characters).
7. Tattoo Heavy
Tattoo Heavy uses thick, unconventional strokes which result in really attractive glyphs. It’s available in TTF format and suitable for short tattoos as well as poster designs, band logos and titles. However, for commercial use you’ll have to contact the creator.
8. Mardian
9. Tribal Tattoo
You might be thinking “what, another font with ‘tribal’ in the title?”, but this one is completely different from the previous tribal tattoo font. As you can see, it’s a dingbat font, which means it uses special symbols and shapes instead of numbers and letters. These symbols are popular tattoo motifs, and this font makes it easy for you to prepare a tattoo design – just pick a symbol, print it out and bring it to your tattoo shop. Tribal Tattoo is a TTF font and it’s free for personal use.
10. Angilla
Angilla is a really attractive font with thick swashes reminiscent of calligraphic fonts. I can see it being used for headlines and poster designs as well as tattoos. You can download it in TTF format.
11. Medieval Scribish
12. Unzialish
13. Tengwar Annatar
14. Brother Tattoo
15. True Man Tattoos
True Man Tattoos is another dingbat font with popular tattoo designs. The glyphs are illustrated in great detail, and you can use them as templates for your tattoo. This is a TTF font for personal use.
16. Death in the Shadow
17. Vid’s Norse
18. Crux
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.
19. Meroitic Hieroglyphics
If you’ve always wanted a tattoo of Egyptian hieroglyphics, you’re in luck, because there’s a font for that, too. It’s a TTF font that’s free for commercial use and perfect for tattoos if you’re into Egyptian mythology and history.
20. Glagolitsa
21. Skullx
Roses, dragons, crosses and skulls – these are the most popular tattoo designs. Thanks to this amazing dingbat font, you can choose from a dozen skull designs, some more detailed than the others. It’s a TTF font, only for personal use.
22. Genzsch Et Heyse
This is another blackletter-style tattoo font with elaborate curlicues and a medieval feel. It’s a TTF font that’s free for commercial use, and the license also allows @font-face embedding if you ever wish to use it on a website.
23. Kremlin Alexander
Kremlin Alexander is a font that uses Cyrillic characters and comes in TTF format with a commercial-use license. If you want to pay respect to Mother Russia with your tattoo, this is your font.
24. GoJuOn
GoJuOn is another in the line of non-standard fonts; this TTF font contains kanji characters instead of the Latin alphabet. You can use it in tattoo designs for an exotic effect, but first check with someone who understands the language to avoid unwanted phrases like “I’m a fabulous monkey” in your tattoo.
25. Silent Reaction
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.
26. Tattoo Ink
Tattoo Ink is visually interesting on several levels; the combination of thin lines and filled-in outlines gives it a retro quality, and it would look especially attractive in a tattoo design. It’s an all-caps TTF font that’s free for commercial use.
27. Hello Sailor
Hello Sailor is a simple-looking, thin all-caps font that evokes the traditional style of sailor tattoos. It works great in combination with illustrations because it’s not intrusive. You can download it in TTF format for personal use only.
28. Tribal Butterflies
29. Dragon is Coming
30. Beech
31. VTKS Rock Garage
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.
32. Schwachsinn
Even though Schwachsinn is a tough name to pronounce, the font is truly amazing with its uniformly thick brush strokes and the shadow effects to grant it an attention-grabbing character and serious appeal. Schwachsinn can be the ultimate font if you are looking to get a name tattooed on your skin. This tattoo is free for commercial use as well, and it’s available in TTF format.
33. Visitation
If you are planning to get inked, you can’t go wrong with religious themes for the design and quotes. The Visitation font further ups the ante with a design that blends Latin style with Christianity-themed letters which look elegant.
34. Celtasmigoria
Celtasmigoria is the second Celtic-inspired tattoo font on the list after KR Keltic One, but instead of adding symbols and arts to just the first letter of a word, Celtasmigoria adds the artistic elements to every letter. This one is the perfect choice for getting a name tattoo.
35. VTKS Tattoo
VTKS Tattoo is another tattoo font which utilizes shadows and negative space to create a very aggressive font that you’ll see mostly in gothic art and death metal-inspired designs.
36. Angel Tears
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.
37. Lime Blossom Caps Font
It’s the fascinating design that separates “Lime Blossom Caps Font” from the rest. So, if you want your tattoo font to arrest eyes with little effort, you shouldn’t fail to give it a chance. Due mainly to the slightly complex appearance, it’s slightly difficult to read. However, it’s more suitable for the projects that must have the charm to win attention.
38. Tuamotu
There are some tattoo fonts that seem to be timeless. And tuamotu is one of them. The South Pacific inspired tattoo font is designed by Imagex Fonts. Courtesy the attractive design, the font seems to be more suitable for the projects that need to be at the center of attention. Keep in mind, tuamotu is free for only personal usage. And if you want to use it for commercial purposes, you will need to buy it.
39. Always Beside You
Times when you want your design to showcase elegance, a beautiful font like “Always Beside You” can come into play. For those unfamiliar, it’s been carved out by well-known font master – Jonathan Harris. He has more than 433 top-notch fonts on FontSpace with over 11 million downloads. Whether you want your project to flaunt love or raise the fashion quotient, Always Beside You is the one you should use. Everything considered; it’s one of the best free tattoo fonts out there.
40. Xanax
If you are after an eye-catching 3D tattoo font, Xanax could be the right pick. The font comes in both upper and lowercase characters to suit different designs. Aside from beautifully carved letters, it also offers a wide range of symbols which can play a vital role in adding the x-factor to the design.
Use These Tattoo Fonts for Your Next Body Artwork
That ends our article on the best tattoo fonts that you can use in 2020 to create your next inspiration. Check them out and let us know which one caught your fancy. Also, if there’s a font you love and we missed it, mention its name in the comments below and we will check it out.
