Black and grey tattoo of the word JOY in a serif font on the upper arm, with a light grey t-shirt sleeve visible.

JOY lettering on an upper arm

Lettering · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A small tattoo of the capitalised word JOY sits on the upper arm, set in a classic serif typeface. The lines are dark and even, with the ink shown in black and grey against the skin. The photograph is black and white and tightly framed, with the sleeve of a t-shirt along the top edge.

Lettering Upper arm Word

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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 last job through the Kestrel Press was a wedding card that nobody wanted set by hand. Dennis Hale worked the composing stick without looking up, lead sorts clicking into the rule, the small feet of each letter pressed flush against the next. The customer had asked for the old serif from the bottom drawer, the one marked for ornaments, and for a single word centred below the names: JOY.

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Dennis had been a compositor for forty-one years and could read backwards faster than most people read forwards. He noticed the Y had a sort chipped along one arm, and he set it anyway, turning it so the damage faced the wall and would not take ink. His daughter Maureen, who ran the front desk and had once wanted to be a vet, came down the stairs with the proof and asked why he was fussing over a word only four letters long.

He did not explain. He thought about the summer a boy from the next street had painted that same word on a shed door with a brush too wide for it, and how the letters had run and sagged in the heat. His mother had laughed until she had to sit on the back step. Nobody had minded. He inked the forme, laid the card under the platen, and when the press came down it made the flat soft sound it always made.

When the works closed a fortnight later, Maureen found three lead sorts in a biscuit tin in his coat pocket: a J, an O and the chipped Y, still turned to face the wall.