From feminine to masculine to oldstyle to decorative, the possibilities of typefaces to be used for a tattoo are numerous. As with the amount of style choices, the languages in which they can tattooed are quite numerous as well. Quite often typefaces are chosen based on the way the look on paper, which really isn't always a good indication as to how it will look tattooed. Tattoo artists usually won't appreciate the subtly of your chosen typeface, and may have difficulties replicating it's dimensions and spacing once the ink is under the skin. Some typefaces are easier to replicate on the body than others, but the chance of making it look exactly the same are slim to none. Skin, on all areas of the body, but especially the forearm, tends to move and distort quite dramatically. Just the natural movement of an area, such as the forearm, can alter the way a tattoo looks immediately. Also, that same movement and distortion causes the ink under the skin to move. Therefore, typographic tattoos are pretty much always going to look wrong due to the distortion over long periods of time. If you are able to design a typeface around the movement that will be created you can potentially avoid some of these problems that long periods of distortion create. I believe that the problems associated with typographic tattoos is one of the reason many tattoo artists prefer to create original typefaces rather than say Helvetica. Not only does it make the tattoo unique, but it gives that typographic tattoo a better chance at being readable after a long period of time.
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