Czech lettering tattoo: best ideas and inspiration

Czech lettering: why choose it

For Czech clients this is the most precise option there is: the language carries shades of meaning that only translate approximately into English, and you know exactly what you are wearing – no surprises, no accidental second meaning. For visitors it is something else entirely, a memento of a city or a time in their life written in the local language rather than a souvenir.

We most often tattoo sentences passed down from grandparents or parents, lines from Czech poetry and songs, names and messages to children, and short personal mottos. One thing to weigh up: unlike a foreign script, Czech text can be read by anyone walking past. For some people that is exactly the point; for others it is a reason to pick a more discreet placement.

Accents: what Czech lettering stands or falls on

This is the real difference between Czech and English lettering, and the usual reason a piece ends up looking almost right. Most popular calligraphic and tattoo fonts were designed for English and contain no Czech diacritics at all, so every háček and accent has to be drawn in by hand. Done without care, you get marks that do not exist in the language: an apostrophe instead of a háček, an accent leaning the wrong way, or a háček sitting off the letter axis.

The places it breaks most often: ď and ť carry a mark shaped like an apostrophe to the upper right, not above the letter; ů takes a small ring, not a stroke; and capitals with accents (Á, Č, Ř) need extra headroom, which changes the height of the whole line. In cursive and at very small sizes the mark and the letter tend to merge over the years, so we would rather size the text up than push it to the limit.

One more thing we always go through before the session: spelling and punctuation. Read your text out loud, check the capitals and commas, and think about where the line will break so the sentence still makes sense visually. Send us the wording written out, not dictated.

Styles, designs and placement

Fine line black work leads our gallery – script that reads like handwriting, and plain sans-serif for short mottos. Real handwriting works best of all: a signature or a note transferred straight from paper, which is unbeatable for memorial pieces. Longer quotes are set in two or three lines, single words on their own, sometimes with a small symbol or a red accent.

We most often tattoo Czech lettering on the forearm, collarbone, ribs, back, neck and inner arm. A longer sentence needs a flat surface so it can be read in a single line, which is why ribs, forearms and the spine work well.

Our artists will prepare several typefaces and layouts and draw the accents so they look like part of the font rather than an afterthought. We work in English, Czech and Russian.