Choosing a Tattoo Design

There are three general types of people who get tattooed: The ones who tattoo themselves out of pleasure for its aesthetic value, the ones who do so to mark an important life event (memorial tattoos), and the ones who pay attention to tattoo symbology and choose a design to represent a part of themselves. Whatever the reason for tattooing one's body, the process of choosing a design is one of the most important things a person should do.

Tattoos are permanent pieces of art work. You can't dispose them as you could with a drawing or painting. And although now there are methods for tattoo removal, usually people keep a tattoo on their skin until the day they die. Nobody wants to get stuck with a lame design and wonder what the heck were they thinking when they got that design.

The worst thing you can do is enter a tattoo shop to get work done and not have the slightest idea of what it is that you want. Flash art of a tattoo shop’s wall is usually not the best place to choose a design as you will end up having an unoriginal tattoo that a whole bunch of other people might have. I do not have anything against flash art, but if you want a design from there try modifying it to personalize the design to suit your tastes. You could slightly change a design not only in its shape/form, but also in the colors chosen. Or you could join two or three flash art designs into one to create something new and original.

GETTING IDEAS FOR DESIGNS:

* Consider what you love: Get inspiration from the things you like best.

(What are your passions, hobbies, dreams, aspirations, or achievements? What are your utmost favorite music artists and bands? What actor/actress do you like best? What are your favorite pieces of artwork? What other famous people do you admire? What animals do you identify the most with?)

* Consider a particular tattoo’s meaning: Search through the web to find pages on tattoo symbolism. Go to the Recommended Links in this website to find my page selections on the subject. Or visit my Tattoo Meanings page.

(What symbols have you always liked? What meanings do they have for each cultural group? What are your personal characteristics and attributes, and with which symbols are they portrayed?)

* Consider religious/spiritual symbolism: For many, wearing a symbol of their religion on their skin means being constantly reminded of the spiritual world while still living day to day. Most people who get these tattoos have a strong conviction that what they believe is an integral part of who they are as a person. Other people might choose to tattoo scripture onto their skin. Visit this website’s Religious Symbols to get more information on the particular meanings of each symbol that you will transform into your tattoo design.

(Do you want to wear a symbol of your faith on your skin? Are you sure there is little possibility of changing your spiritual beliefs? Would you like your astrological (zodiac) symbol tattooed on you?)

*Consider word tattoos: People get tattoos of words that evoke something personal or general concepts. Others might get names of people, pets, or places (as memorial tattoos). Some others get the initials of themselves, other people or famous celebrities. Spiritual people might decide to get holy scripture quotes on their skin.

A word of advice for word tattoos: Do NOT get a boyfriend or girlfriend’s name on you…for obvious reasons.

*Consider the art style you want:

-Black and Grey

-Color

-Japanese-style

-Celtic or Tribal

-Traditional

-Photorealistic

-Fine-line

-Old School

-Black light/ UV tattoos

TATTOO SIZE AND PLACEMENT OPTIONS:

*Size:

Choose a size that you’ll feel comfortable having. You can go as large or as small as you wish. Just remember that the larger the size of the tattoo, the more detail you can have in that tattoo. Smaller, detailed tattoos tend to blur with time (especially the fine-detailed areas).

*Placement:

The most common body areas to tattoo are lower-back, wrist, arms, ankle, shoulder blades (back), and the hip or lower abdomen area.

You can get a tattoo almost anywhere on your body. Some of these other body areas are: the hands, feet, face, abdomen, chest, ribs, thighs, legs, buttocks, crotch, or anywhere on the back.

Aysel Star’s advice on choosing a place for a tattoo design? : Strip naked in front of a mirror and take a look at every inch of your body. Take your tattoo design (on paper) and place it over different body areas to see how it looks like in that particular position. When you do this, you might realize that the tattoo needs to be resized (scaled up or down) depending on the location you put it on. This exercise lets you be sure of exactly what, where and how your tattoo will be once it is done permanently by a tattoo artist.

LAST WORDS ON CHOOSING A DESIGN:

*Choose one you will not regret having 5, 10, 20, even 30 years from now. Think about the profession you have now or will have in the future. (Is that a conflicting design? What about its placement? Can it be visible to others or is that not appropriate?).

*How open do you feel about telling why you chose a particular design? Many tattoos tell a story, what’s yours gonna be?

*And once again: Be completely sure of the design you want. If you have doubts, wait some more time or just don’t do it.

P.S. If you can’t draw your design out, try finding pictures similar to what you want. Your tattoo artist should be able to draw something for you according to all your specification… after all, they are artists.