Close-up of the word Promise in black typewriter-style lettering along the side of a finger, with a silver ring on the hand below.

Promise lettering on a finger

Lettering · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

The photograph shows a finger with the word Promise written in black ink in a typewriter-style serif font, running diagonally along the finger. The linework is solid and even, with no shading, and the ink appears dark and crisp against the skin. A dark nail polish and a silver ring are visible, and the background is softly out of focus in brown and green tones.

Lettering Hand Promise Word Typewriter font

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

Dear Tom,

Keep reading

The Olympia came in on Tuesday wrapped in a bath towel, the way your grandad always carried it up from the station. The carriage was fine. The platen had gone soft and the ribbon had dried to a grey crust, so I've spent three evenings on it with the bench lamp pulled low. It's working now, which is more than I can say for the sheet still caught in the roller.

It was your grandad's last page, or near enough. Someone had typed one word across it, over and over, sixty or seventy times, each line a little further down the paper. Promise, promise, promise. The e kept sticking, so each one came out darker where the key had been forced down, as if he'd been leaning on it with his whole hand. I could see the ghost of an earlier, cleaner line underneath, where he'd struck it first and then gone back to press it harder.

I didn't know what to do with it, so I did what he'd have done and cleaned the e key with a pin and a drop of oil until it rose true. Then I typed one line of my own underneath his, a single word, and I took it out again before I could feel silly about it.

The machine's ready to collect whenever you can come. Bring the towel back if you still have it. I've left the sheet folded in the lid, and the e is clean now, so anything you type on it from here will come out the way you meant it.

Yours, Margaret