Bruce Sterling just noted Shelley Jackson’s “Skin Project,” the 2,095-word short story being published in an “edition of one” by being tattooed, one word at a time, on the bodies of 2,095 different people. Although I’ve never met Shelley Jackson, I’ve participated indirectly in this project: in November 2006, I provided typographic assistance to editor Ellen Datlow and writer/editor Kelly Link, who were in Austin, Texas, for the World Fantasy Convention and who were both about to get tattoos as part of this project. Each of them had a single word to be turned into a tattoo: for Kelly, “skin”; for Ellen, “device.” (including the final period).
I gave them several choices of typeface, based on what they told me they’d like and on what I thought would work in a tattoo. (Admittedly, this was a brand new production consideration for me.) The four typefaces I tried out were Monotype Baskerville, Requiem, Monotype Bell, and Adobe Garamond. Ellen picked Monotype Bell; I don’t recall which typeface Kelly chose.
Early stages of this project were shown in Ina Saltz’s book Body type, a collection of photographs of tattoos that involve words, but the “Skin Project” was far from done when Ina’s book went to press. (In fact, it was on the shelf in Austin’s excellent bookstore Book People when Kelly went there to do a reading during the convention.)
Which typefaces got used, ultimately? Ellen picked Monotype Bell (third one down in the image at left). I don’t recall which one Kelly ended up choosing.
My spouse may have emailed you this earlier, if so please disregard. Since he has been in pre-press for over 20 years now, and over 10 when he was serving his apprenticeship in tattooing, a similar situation arose in about 1993. He provided the modified text for one of the artists at the shop, since it had to be manipulated into a circle.
Wouldn’t you know, a few years later I happened to where the artist had submitted the tattoo to one of the magazines without giving him credit for it, lol.
I think I would have gone with Garamond. I guess it depends on how large the tattoo was being rendered, but Garamond has thicker lines, which will generally look better and last longer without spreading out and distorting to a great degree.
[...] And talking of tattoos, there’s an interesting article over on Easily Amused, the blog of John D Berry’s. It’s entitled Wearing your art on your sleeve. [...]