Cool Tattoo Designs Idea Gallery

What makes a tattoo interesting or unique is the quality, the placement and whether or not you've seen it on 500,000 other people. In my Really Bad Tattoos hub, I explain how improper placement, bad choice of colors and poorly drawn images are guaranteed to form an atrocious piece of body art. It is important to choose a reputable tattoo parlor. If your friends have tattoos, ask the ones who have decent ink where they got theirs done. If you see a stranger on the street and she's sporting a tattoo that causes you to experience Stendhal's Syndrome (an adrenaline rush or dizziness experienced when standing before a beautiful work of art), do not hesitate to ask her for a parlor recommendation.

Originality is another factor. For example, ten years ago tribal tattoos were virtually unheard of, so those who got them were considered quirky and alternative. Then tribal art had an explosion of popularity before reaching it's current state, which is so trendy it's getting disgusting, and therefore going out of style. Butterflies have also fallen victim to this state. Any girl who can't decide what to get seems to settle on a picture of a butterfly. The key word here is "settle". There are plenty of butterfly tattoos that are beautifully designed, but when selected as a last minute ditch at a crappy tattoo parlor, the image loses some of it's meaning. The meaning behind a tat can make it or break it. No matter how small, I find that a properly placed, simple black lettering tattoo utilizing a particular combination of words can be a hundred times more meaningful than a huge dragon sprawled across one's back, or cobra winding up someone‘s calf. Luckily, for every bad tattoo there is a good one that utilizes precision, depth and shading to create a true work of art.