Black and white photo of a small black serif lettering tattoo reading JOY on the upper arm, just below a grey T-shirt sleeve.

JOY lettering on an upper arm

Lettering · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo spells the word JOY in capital letters of a classic serif typeface, set side by side on the outer upper arm. The lines are solid and dark black with soft edges, and the letters are small relative to the arm. The black and white photograph is taken close up against a plain light background, with the grey sleeve framing the top of the arm.

Lettering Upper arm Word Serif lettering

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 lintel over the postern at Harrowby Keep had split along its bed in the frost, and the county surveyor wanted it down before the wall came with it. I was sent up the scaffold with a bag of lime, a pointing trowel and a boy called Tom to hold the rope, because somebody had to save the letters first. Three were left, cut deep into the grey sandstone in the square Roman capitals the old lord's family had favoured, each stroke finished with a little foot, like a row of people waiting at a stile.

Keep reading

Tom asked what they said. I told him JOY, and he laughed, because nothing in that place had been joyful since the Parliamentary men came through with their cannon. My great-uncle Ruthven had cut them, paid in ale and told to leave room above for a fourth word the lord never gave him. The lord died in the cellars. The widow took what was left of the money and went south, and the space above the Y stayed blank for two hundred years, holding only rain and the odd wren.

I worked the moss out of the serifs with a soft brush and cold water until each line came up black again. Halfway along the O I found a pencil mark Ruthven had made, a small arrow pointing at the blank stone, and beside it a tally of seven strokes. Seven days of waiting, perhaps, or seven days of work he had not been paid for.

We reset the lintel by dusk. Before the mortar set, a thin rain came over the wall and filled the cut of the J, sitting there like a bead of light until the wind took it, and Tom asked me what word should go in the empty space. I told him I would leave it empty, as Ruthven had.