We will tattoo, we must tattoo!

July 9, 2008 7:32 PM

Tattoo Filter: Help me find a font for my next tattoo!

So I'm thinking about (well, I've actually already decided) getting a tattoo of David Hilbert's famous words: Wir müssen wissen — wir werden wissen (We will know - we must know) attached to my body permanently in ink form.

Can the hive mind help me pick a good font that not only fits the language, but the context of the quote as well? Preferably, the font should be available on some operating system, or can be easily obtained for free. I'm thinking about getting this tattooed to my back, but I'm also open to suggestions for that as well. Thanks!

posted by Geppp to Writing & Language (7 answers total)

Oooh! I am a type geek, and there is some good stuff on typographica, (http://typographica.org/) specifically the fonts of the year, 2007-2004. Great type, like:

http://typographica.org/001131.php or
http://typographica.org/001153.php

check out some of the other stuff, like

http://typographica.org/001124.php


Good Luck!
posted by wuzandfuzz at 7:54 PM on July 9, 2008

Check out the Live Journal community Literary Tattos for lots of good ideas and examples.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 8:00 PM on July 9, 2008 [1 favorite]

I recently got Juvenal's "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" tattooed. No knowledge about fonts for you, but if you're interested in having it semi-public, mine's in a band over the top of my arm, about 1.5-2 inches above where my watch is. Coverable by a long sleeve, out of the corner of peoples' eyes it looks like a watch (my workmates didn't notice it for about 5 hours from when I removed my dress shirt), and if you come up with a matching tattoo it'll go well on the inside of the arm.

I find with my back tattoo that I sometimes well..sort of forget that I have it, since I see it so infrequently. Maybe I'm just stupid - for the record, I don't regret at all getting it on my back, so have no fear.

Quality quote, by the way. I like.

(For those who know the quote, I think of it in the current usage, not in the "hey let's lock up my womenfolk" way.)
posted by Lemurrhea at 8:16 PM on July 9, 2008

Futura in a medium or book font. Maybe book italic if you want it to look a bit more like spoken text. It was designed by a German typographer, Paul Renner, in 1927, just three years before Hilbert's speech. Futura is a modern, geometric sans-serif derived from simple geometric forms with constant stroke width. I think that would have appealed to a mathematician whose work was in geometry. And like Hilbert's work, Futura had significant influence on future geometric typefaces and continues to be widely used today.

And of course, Futura is ubiquitous so you should have no problems finding it on any Mac system.
posted by junesix at 8:26 PM on July 9, 2008 [1 favorite]

I have to respectfully disagree with junesix's choice. While Futura is a beautiful typeface, and historically contemporary to the quote, I wouldn't recommend it for a tattoo. I think that it would be very difficult for even the best tattoo artist to reproduce perfectly, and the skin is an uneven and imperfect canvas. Imperfections in Futura will be very noticeable because the typeface is so geometric.

I would recommend a serif typeface, as any imperfections will be less apparent. (Italic serifs even more so, as they are based on handwritten forms.) Times New Roman is a bit boring, my standby serif faces are Sabon, Electra, and Caslon. I am really liking Dolly a lot lately. For something more readily available, you might try Palatino.

You might check out Body Type by Ina Saltz, published in 2006. Its a very cool book about typographic tattoos, and they list the typefaces under each photo. You can look through it for fonts you like, and also see what type styles hold up best etched into skin.

Good luck, I'd love to see a photo when its done.
posted by Cranialtorque at 9:54 PM on July 9, 2008 [2 favorites]

I bow out to Cranialtorque's wisdom and his reasoning on a serif makes perfect sense. I know nothing about tattooing. Sabon would be beautiful.
posted by junesix at 11:10 PM on July 9, 2008

My go-to site for tattoo fonts is the dafont.com. They have a large number of freeware fonts arranged by genre (script, bitmap, gothic, etc.), and you can preview your custom text.

I second Cranialtorque's concerns regarding straight, geometric shapes on malleable skin. Another issue to consider when choosing a type for text tattoos is size. Tattoos age by spreading out; if lines lie too closely to other lines, they'll blur together as you age and render your tattoo illegible. Consider a font on the simpler side of the spectrum, watch for tight spaces in letters like "e" and "s," and listen to your artist if they suggest bumping up the size.

Back when I worked at the tattoo studio, customers were often surprised by how large their text had to be to age gracefully.

And yes, pics please!
posted by kwaller at 7:19 AM on July 10, 2008