In this age of modern tattoo designs, we’re seeing a lot more diversity in what people want on their sleeves, or elsewhere on their bodies.
There's kind of an old-school approximation of what people used to get inked decades ago – sailor anchors, and ‘mother’ with a heart, and Semper Fi and all that…
A lot of younger visitors representing a new generation of tattoo types often like to get things that you would never think that someone would have etched on their bodies!
Cool Critters
For example, some of the biggest tattoo designs from the 1950s involved the Eagle as an enduring icon of American life.
But just last week, we inked a fellow with something that looked like a cross between a hedgehog and some kind of imaginary slime creature from a role-playing game.
That's just part of the job.
Also, when you have a tattoo shop that can help you with these innovative and esoteric designs, you get a better result in general.
Script and Scrolling
Then there are all those types of new calligraphy and band-type tattoo work that people enjoy.
Some tattoo designers have really innovated here, to beyond the barbed wire and Celtic weave that so symbolize the 1990s.
Now, you're likely to see a lot of Asian-looking script, and Hebrew or Sanskrit, as well as some types of tattoos that aren't really a real language at all. Enterprising artists and imaginative people sit down at the drawing board and take aspects of these age-old language scripts, and make them into something new that's more decorative than message-based.
Ironic Tattoos
We've also moved from a generation of sincerely expressive tattoos into the age of irony.
It used to be that the pain and the money of tattoo work often ensured that somebody was getting something stamped on their body that they really believed in deeply, and there wasn't a whole lot of subterfuge to it. Hence the Eagle, and the heart that says ‘mother,’ and everything else like that.
Today, you're just as likely to draw a Homer Simpson head on somebody's shoulder, or lay some kind of meme stock across an expanse of flesh ready for the tattoo needle.
All of this takes some pivoting and accommodation by the best tattoo shops around. If you've already read some of the blog and looked around the website, you know that we are a top location for getting ink done in Tucson, Arizona. But it's worth thinking about these new trends, too, when you're trying to design what's absolutely right for your skin!