It’s the question we hear most often when we explain how our new process works:
‘My artist already shows me the design before I get the tattoo, though, isn’t it just the same thing?’
We can see why some might make this comparison. The reality, however, couldn’t be more different. Quite how different and revolutionary, though, is hard to contemplate until you know exactly what the process involves.
So, in this piece, we’ll take a deep dive into the finer details of the Design Process and the vital role it plays.
For most tattoos, the process is roughly the same wherever you go. You book a consultation, typically lasting fifteen to thirty minutes, to talk through what you’re after. You share your references, the artist asks a few questions, and then they go away to design the piece on their own. Sometimes you’ll see the finished design a few days before your appointment; sometimes you’ll see it on the morning of the appointment, with the stencil already half-prepared. Either way, the discussion about whether your tattoo actually feels right tends to happen on the day, in the chair, with the needles waiting.
This is standard industry practise, and there’s nothing wrong with this. Most tattoos in the world are made this way, and plenty of them are excellent. The problem (for want of a better phrase) is that the process of visualising, reflecting, refining, and ultimately having confidence in your design happens in a very compressed window.
Ultimately, it means wholeheartedly committing to something that will stay on your skin for a lifetime in just a few minutes. For many, this feels quietly rushed in a way they only recognise after that tattoo is complete. For some, it prevents them from getting the tattoo altogether.
We have created an alternative.
We would say that our Tattoo Design Process is closer to commissioning a piece of bespoke art than booking a tattoo. The structure, the time, and the roles of the people involved are all built around an entirely different question. Not ‘what do you want us to draw?’ but ‘what does this tattoo actually need to be, for you?’
It might sound like a small reshaping of the question, but in practice, it changes almost everything.
The first conversation isn’t a fifteen-minute brief. Instead, it’s hours spent with an Art Director whose job is to understand the story behind the idea. Yes, it is about the references you’ve gathered – but crucially – it’s about why you keep coming back to those particular references. Which elements carry meaning, and which are there because Pinterest kept surfacing them? This part takes time because it can’t be hurried. Most clients arrive with a clear sense of what they want and a less clear sense of why – and the why is what the design has to be built on.
Next, you receive three initial sketches. This stage is one of the most important in the whole process, and it’s often where something shifts. Up to this point, your idea has lived in your head and on a moodboard. The moment you see it drawn – three different interpretations, each one taking your brief somewhere slightly different – you start to understand what you actually want in a way you couldn’t before. Clients describe it as a lightbulb moment. Suddenly, you know which elements feel right, which ones don’t, and which preferences you had no language for until you saw them.
This is also the stage where the references you arrived with start to find their proper place. A lot of what we see online is trend-led, almost by definition. It’s the visual language most readily available, so it’s the one most clients reach for first. There’s nothing wrong with that. But once you see your idea drawn specifically for you, the gap between something inspired by tattoos you’ve seen and something that could only belong to you becomes visible.
The three sketches aren’t the end of the design phase. They’re the start of it.
What follows is a refinement consultation, where you talk through what landed and what didn’t. It’s where the design evolves into a full concept presentation and moves onto the body itself. Factors such as placement and sizing, as well as the way the piece will sit across the natural lines, contours and movement of your anatomy, are all mapped and considered. A tattoo can look extraordinary on paper but feel wrong on the body, and the only way to catch that before it’s permanent is to map it properly. That’s what the avatar stage is for: visualising the design where it will actually live.
After this, you have time to live with the design. To share it with the people whose opinion matters to you. To come back with honest feedback that isn’t coloured by the pressure of an appointment booked for tomorrow. We adjust, refine, and keep refining, for as long as the design needs it.
Before any ink touches your skin there’s a final consultation with the artist who will tattoo you, and a temporary tattoo trial, where the design is printed onto your body so you can wear it for a few days and feel what it’s actually like to have it there. By the time you sit down for the real thing, you’ve thought about this piece from more angles than most people ever consider before something permanent goes onto their body. There is, by that point, nothing left to second-guess.
It’s worth being specific about this, because it’s where the misunderstanding usually sits. The Art Director isn’t there to be a faster, more responsive version of an artist drawing a sketch. Their role is much closer to a creative collaborator, and their brief is to be honest with you.
That means suggesting symbolism you hadn’t considered. Pushing back when something in the composition isn’t earning its place. Flagging when an element you love conceptually is going to fight the way the tattoo sits on the body, or age in a way that won’t serve you a decade from now. Recommending that you remove things, which, in our experience, is often the most useful advice a client receives, because nearly every tattoo gets stronger when something unnecessary is taken out of it.
A good Art Director is someone who knows when to advocate for the design and when to advocate for you, and who understands that these aren’t always the same thing.
An exceptional tattoo and piece of art, where every aspect has been thought through properly. Not just drawn well – every studio worth its salt can draw well – but considered, refined, and tested against you specifically. Every element has a reason for being there. Nothing is on your body because a social media algorithm suggested it or because you ran out of time to question it. The placement, the sizing, the symbolism, the way it moves with your body – all of it has been worked through deliberately, with the time and the second opinions it actually needed.
The Tattoo Design Process exists because a permanent tattoo deserves more than a thirty-minute consultation and a design you see on the day. It deserves the kind of care, collaboration and considered thinking that bespoke work demands. The end result should feel one hundred percent personal, one hundred percent intentional, and one hundred percent yours – a tattoo that could only belong to you.
If you’d like to understand more about how the process works, or take the first step into your own, you can read about the Tattoo Design Process and start a conversation with us here. → Learn more about the Tattoo Design Process
The pinnacle of next generation tattooing
