Tattoo Designs: The Key to Making It as a Tattooist.

If you want to succeed in the tattoo industry it takes a lot more than just buying the right tattoo kits. You need to have a solid grip of tattoo design and hopefully a catalogue of design options that prospective customers can look at for inspiration, or at the very least discussing what they want in a custom piece.

The cheapest, if not easiest, way to get tattoo designs is to come up with your own. This is by no means a waste of time if you’re just getting started, and is definitely something you can start doing even before buying any tattoo kits. If you intend to actually be a tattoo artist you’re going to need a portfolio to get an apprenticeship in the first place. A tattooist is not only an artist, they’re a highly skilled technician which allows them to work in the medium they do. That said, artistic ability is still a must in tattooing and one of the best ways to show your talent off is with a portfolio of tattoo designs.

Another solution for finding tattoo designs is the internet. There are essentially three kinds of internet tattoo design websites. The first kind which I’m going to mention briefly is free tattoo design sites. These sites make tattoo designs available for free. I suppose this could be a great way to get designs to cover the wall in a new shop for a low fee. Personally though, I think tattoos should have high personal meaning and be as unique as possible, and if these designs are floating around for free on the internet they will not be very exclusive. It doesn’t matter how many tattoo kits you have, you are not going to get customers without compelling designs.

The other two types of tattoo design websites are both pay models. Some operate on a straight pay per piece program where the customer buys the right to print a design they can then take to a local shop (or hang on the wall of their shop). The other type of pay site for tattoo designs is membership sites. They charge a recurring monthly fee to users, but grant their members access to their archives as well as any updates that might be added while the member stays in their good graces. These designs will obviously be more exclusive than free designs making them similar to the traditional flash purchasing that tattoo parlors have been doing for years.

In the end it doesn’t matter how good your tattoo kits are, okay, well the quality of your hardware matters some, but it’s going to be your ability with design that will make or break you in the tattoo business. Even if you have the best tattoo kits you will need plenty of design options to succeed in tattooing.