Black ink drawing of a pair of antlers above a stag-shaped block of handwritten song lyrics on beige paper, a design in lettering style with no body placement shown.

Antlers and handwritten lyrics design

Lettering · Black and grey · Flash

The drawing shows a pair of black antlers at the top, with handwritten lyrics set in lines that narrow into the shape of a deer's body. The linework is bold and even, with solid black strokes for the antlers and neat capital lettering for the text on a plain beige background. The composition is centred and filled entirely by the antlers and the words, with no shading or colour.

Lettering Antler Deer Stag Lyric Handwriting Text

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The galley of the Margaret Rae smells of burnt onions and wet wool, and you stopped trying to scrub it clean years ago. Hal says a cook's job is to feed men who can't tell one day from the next, so you serve stew at four and at midnight, and you keep the port names chalked on the cupboard door. Cardiff. Hull. Lerwick. Nobody has ever asked what the chalk is for.

Keep reading

Tonight the swell is long and patient, and the pans slide unless you wedge them. You are slicing carrots when the radio on the bulkhead crackles with a song you half know, a woman going on about someone who never stays past the morning. Hal, nineteen and certain he is the first man ever to be sad at sea, mouths the words with his eyes shut. You tell him the carrots won't cut themselves. He tells you that you have no soul. You tell him you have a bread knife and a list.

Near dawn you find the drawing he left on the table, pencilled on the back of a fuel docket: a stag built from words, antlers sharp as a winter hedge, the lines narrowing down into its legs. He has lettered every line in careful capitals, the way the schoolmistress in Fraserburgh taught him. You read it twice and fold it into your apron pocket beside the ration tally.

When the Rae noses into Lerwick at noon, you take the sponge from its hook and wipe the name off the cupboard door. You stand a while with the chalk in your hand, then leave the space blank for whoever cooks next.