AI Tattoos
Free tool · no sign-up
Tattoo font generator
Type a name, a word or a date, and see it in twelve real tattoo lettering fonts. Adjust the size and the letter spacing until it reads right, then take it away as a transparent PNG or a vector SVG your artist can scale to a stencil.
Build your lettering now
Everything runs in your browser: no account, no upload, no waiting. The lettering is drawn as you type — flat as a stencil, and at the same time wrapped onto a real forearm photo so you can judge the size for real. You leave with a PNG or an SVG.
Type something above and it appears here.
See it on skin
The same lettering, wrapped onto a real forearm photo. Drag it into place, then use the corner dot to rotate and resize it.
A demo forearm, not yours — the app does the same thing on your own photo. The letters follow the curve of the arm, which is where most flat mock-ups fall apart.
Take it with you
PNG for messaging it to an artist, SVG for a stencil that stays sharp at any size. Both are transparent, both are yours to use.
Pick the lettering before you pick the placement
Lettering is the one tattoo where the design is mostly decided before you walk into a studio, and the one that goes wrong most often. The word is right, the font is wrong — too thin for the ribs, too ornate to read at arm's length, too wide for the wrist you had in mind. Seeing it drawn out at the size you actually want costs nothing and settles the argument in about a minute.
This generator renders your text with real, licensed typefaces in the browser. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored, and nothing is generated on a server — the preview you see is drawn on your own device, which is also why it is instant and free.
What each lettering style actually suits
Script and brush script — Great Vibes, Alex Brush, Sacramento — are the default for names, quotes and anything that should feel warm. They flow, so they follow a forearm, a collarbone or a rib line well. The catch is contrast: the hairline strokes are the first thing to fade, so scripts want a bit more size than people expect.
Old english and gothic blackletter — UnifrakturMaguntia, UnifrakturCook — carry weight and heritage, and they hold up over decades because the strokes are heavy. They are also the hardest to read. Two or three words is the honest limit; a full sentence in blackletter turns into texture.
Handwriting — Caveat, Homemade Apple — reads as personal rather than designed, which is exactly right for a signature-style piece or a child's name. Stencil and traditional — Stardos Stencil, Rye, Bevan — are bold, high-contrast and built to be legible across a room; they suit upper arms, backs and anything that should look like it was made to last.
Fine-line serif and roman capitals — Cormorant, Cinzel — are the quiet options. Cinzel's capitals are carved-inscription shapes and look right for single words, dates and Latin phrases. Cormorant is delicate, which is a genuine trade-off: beautiful at first, and the thinnest strokes need care.
Practical notes before you commit
Small text closes up. Ink spreads slightly under the skin over years, and the gaps inside letters — the eye of an "e", the counter of an "a" — are the first thing to go. As a rule of thumb, if a letter is under about 5 mm tall, expect it to soften into a smudge within a decade. Fine-line scripts need more room than blocky fonts to survive the same amount of time.
Placement stretches the type. Skin that moves a lot — the inner bicep, the ribs, the side of a foot, anywhere over a joint — will distort a long line of text. Curved placements need lettering that was drawn on a curve, not straight text bent afterwards, which is a conversation to have with your artist rather than something a generator can decide.
Mirroring matters more than people think. Text on the inner forearm reads to you upside down and to everyone else the right way up; you have to choose whose reading you care about. Anything you plan to see in a mirror — a chest piece, a collarbone script — is worth checking mirrored before it is permanent.
Bring the file, not a screenshot. Download the SVG and your artist can scale it to any stencil size without it going soft. The PNG is the version to send in a message. Neither of them is a font file: this tool renders your text, it does not hand out the typefaces.
The fonts are licensed, and the licences are in the open
Every typeface here ships under the SIL Open Font License or the Apache License 2.0. The family names, the licence texts and the source of each download are recorded in the repository next to the font files, because "free tattoo font" sites are usually anything but.
What that licensing allows is rendering, and that is precisely what this page does. The generator will never offer the font file itself for download — the PNG and SVG exports are images of your text, and they are yours to take to any artist.
One honest gap: chicano lettering. It is the style people ask for most after script, and there is no openly licensed typeface that genuinely looks like it — the fine hairlines and the single-stroke pen logic only exist in commercial faces. Rather than substitute a generic script and call it chicano, it is simply not offered here yet.
How the tattoo font generator works
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Type your text
A name, a date, a short quote. It renders as you type — black ink on a transparent background, exactly the way a stencil is drawn.
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Choose the font and the fit
Twelve lettering styles, each button set in its own typeface. Size and letter spacing are sliders, so you can open a script up until it breathes or tighten capitals into a block.
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Download PNG or SVG
PNG to send to your artist, SVG for a stencil that stays sharp at any size. Both transparent, both free, no account.
Frequently asked questions
Is this tattoo font generator free?
Yes, completely, and there is no account and no sign-up. It runs in your browser, so there is no cost to us per use and no reason to charge you.
Can I download the fonts themselves?
No. This tool renders your text and exports it as a PNG or an SVG image. It does not distribute font files. All twelve typefaces are open-licensed and easy to find by name if you want them for your own software.
What is the difference between the PNG and the SVG export?
The PNG is a high-resolution image with a transparent background, best for sending your lettering to an artist in a message. The SVG is vector outlines, so it can be scaled to any stencil size without losing sharpness. Ask your artist which they prefer; most want the SVG.
Which tattoo font lasts the longest?
Bolder styles with thicker strokes — blackletter, stencil, traditional slab lettering — hold their shape best as ink spreads over the years. Fine-line scripts and delicate serifs look sharpest on day one and need more size and more care to stay legible over decades.
How small can tattoo lettering be?
Below roughly 5 mm of letter height, the gaps inside letters tend to close up as the ink settles, and the word softens into a blur. Small lettering is possible, but plan for the fact that it will look heavier in ten years than it does when it is fresh.
Do you have chicano lettering?
Not yet. There is no openly licensed typeface that genuinely captures chicano lettering, and substituting a generic script would misrepresent the style. It is on the list, pending a properly licensed face.
Can I see the lettering on my own body?
The AI Tattoos app places a design on a photo of you with depth-aware warping, so it follows the curve of an arm rather than sitting flat on top of it. Export your lettering here first, then try it on there.
Got your lettering? See it on your skin.
The AI Tattoos app puts your design on a photo of you and bends it around the limb, so you know how the words will actually sit before anyone picks up a machine.