Find the tattoo before you sit in the chair

Tattoo Easily has been collecting tattoo ideas since 2013 - galleries organised by where a design goes, what it depicts, and what it has traditionally meant.

The point of a gallery is not to find something to copy. It is to work out what you actually want, so the conversation with your artist starts from something specific rather than "something like this, maybe".

How the site is organised

By placement. Where a tattoo sits changes almost everything about it: how visible it is, how much it hurts, how long it takes to heal, and how it ages. An identical design reads differently on a forearm and on a rib cage.

By subject. Animals, flowers, symbols, lettering, portraits - grouped so you can see a lot of one thing at once, which is the fastest way to work out what you like and what you have simply seen too often.

By meaning. Some designs carry weight beyond how they look - culturally, religiously, or within tattoo tradition itself. Where that is true, the guide says so.

Before you book

Three things worth knowing whatever you choose:

• Size is the decision people most often get wrong. Detail needs room, and a design shrunk to fit loses exactly the detail that made it worth having.
• Fine lines spread. Ink migrates slightly in living skin, so hairline work softens over five to ten years while solid black holds. Good artists build for that.
• Sunlight is what fades tattoos. Sunscreen on healed work does more for its longevity than any aftercare product.

Browse everything below, or search the full collection.