Your body is a canvas with limited space so getting a tattoo that you will treasure indefinitely is important. As experts in the industry, we can tell you about the tattoos that your clients are most likely to regret down the line, as well as some mental exercises you can do to find the ultimate tattoo for your next visit. These are the tips that you, as a tattoo artist, should be handing down to your clients:
Getting into regular meditation could help you to figure out what is most important to you and how you could represent that through design. For example, if the concept of freedom is something you want to pursue in your life, there are plenty of symbols that you could use to suggest this concept.
What you need to convey to your client is that they should be choosing the design that means the most to them. Freedom could be conveyed by birds in flight or the lone wolf, but if your client is a showjumper then the image of a wild horse might be more personal to them.
We all know that getting a tattoo is painful, but what we sometimes forget is that the experience can be scary. For those getting their first tattoo, or those getting their first large tattoo, the pain can be a barrier preventing them from committing to a design. The ability to calm your customer about the tattooing process could be what they need to help them come to a decision too.
As a tattoo artist, it can be beneficial for your business for you to develop a reputation for befriending and calming your customers. Those who enjoy their experience with you will be likely to come back for their next tattoo and tell their friends to visit your parlour next.
Even when they think they have come to an answer, you might want to recommend that they wait a week or two to be sure that that they still love the idea. They are going to have this tattoo for life, so if you think that they may still have a few reservations, tell them to come back in a couple of weeks and if they still love the design then they will be likely to continue liking it in years to come. On the other hand, if two weeks pass and they have changed their mind, then they will be very grateful for your wise words.
If your client is asking for a tattoo in a language that you aren’t fluent in, then you could find yourself at the mercy of google translator, or a well-meaning friend who professes to understand the language but is only mediocre at best. If you’re unlucky, you can end up with pictures of the tattoo fail circulating foreign social media sites.
For this reason, it is important to ask the client to come in with the translation ready for you, rather than expecting you to write a translation of their favourite phrase. This way, you won’t be liable for any blame if they come to realise that there is a typo present in their tattoo. The same goes for quotes, too.
Getting the name of your current lover always seems like a sweet idea, but there’s a lot of scope for it to go wrong. It can be difficult to dissuade your customers from getting a tattoo dedicated to their lover because any suggestion that their relationship might not last could easily be taken offensively.
Instead, when designing their tattoo, consider keeping a few possible correction designs that you could apply later down the line should the client need a quick fix after a messy situation. Instead of trying to convince them against getting a lover’s name, encourage them to come back to you should they ever need to amend the tattoo, though you hope this won’t be the case.
Everyone wants some variation of a butterfly, rose, skull or star these days, so you may want to evaluate how hipster your client may be. For some clients, the important part of a tattoo is the personal story behind the image – it doesn’t matter how often other people choose similar images to these people. For others, uniqueness is incredibly important, and they could end up a little put out when they realise that their skulls and roses tattoo isn’t quite as individual as they first hoped.
A tattoo should bring happiness, memories, confidence, or all three. One way to bring your customer closer to these goals is by purchasing high-quality tattoo supplies to make sure that their tattoo is a stress-free process with the best aftercare. If your customer comes to the conclusion that a tattoo isn’t actually the right path for them, make sure that you have adequate piercing supplies so that you can offer them an alternative that might suit them better.
