Fashion Designer

Cherry blossoms are becoming extremely popular tattoos among women throughout the western world. Cherry blossoms are regarded as very beautiful and sensual body adornment tattoos. However, before you decide to have a tattoo, perhaps you may like to know a little more about the cultural symbolism and history of this delicate and beautiful bloom.

There are a wide variety of cherry blossoms, known as Sakura, and they are indigenous to many East Asian countries including Japan, China, and Korea. These blooms are particularly symbolic in Japan, where they symbolize the sky due to the way they bloom in cloud like formations. Due to their short life and quick death together with their extreme beauty, they are often associated with mortality.

The symbolic nature of Cherry blossoms often influence Japanese art, manga, anime, and film, as well as at musical performances, which is where many of todays tattoo artists gain their inspiration. The popularity of these sensuous tattoos among western women is also influenced by the fact that cherry blossoms are symbolic of love, affection and good fortune. There short but beautiful life also represent the transient, fleeting nature of our own lives, and demonstrate the importance of living life intensely, as in the fullness of time, we are only on this earth very briefly.

There are also important links with the Samurai period in Japanese history, and the flowers appear on many objects of the time, such as Kimonos, sliding doors and screens. Even in modern day Japan, the symbol is used widely on consumer goods including clothing and pottery.

Cherry blossoms were painted on the sides of Japanese aircraft during the second world war, before they embarked on suicide missions. Again they would symbolize the fleeting nature of life. The Japanese also believed that the souls of their air crews lost in battle would be reincarnated as cherry blossoms, and Japanese colonialists often planted them to symbolize the territory becoming part of Japan.

In more modern days the Japanese have donated gifts of these trees as tokens of friendship and cooperation. In 1912 Japan gave the United States three thousand cherry blossom trees which were planted in Sakura Park in Manhattan, and which even to this day, produce a spectacular bloom every year.

The decision to have a tattoo is an intensely personal decision due to its permanent nature and the difficulty of having it removed in the future. If you are going to make a decision to adorn your body in this way, I hope that when you come to choose the design for your tattoo, that you now have a better understanding of its symbolism and that you are able to make a more informed choice in selecting an appropriate tattoo to convey your personality and outlook on life.

In this article I like to talk about 10 of the best classic tattoo designs, and maybe help you decide what the best tattoo design is for you. When I started to compile my top 10 it brought back a lot of good memories for me, I hope it does for you.

1. Anchor Tattoo: What a classic this design is, it has been around as long as sailors have sailed the seven seas. Not as popular nowadays, but it still popular with sea fairing folk.
2. Bluebird Tattoo: Remember the blue birds; it seemed every second person had this tattoo. Usually, the picture depicted two blue birds in flight carrying a scroll with a loved one’s name on it. Where are they now? Come back little blue birds!
3. Mum & Dad Tattoo: Now I do feel old. If you had a bluebird you probably had a mum and dad tattoo. I always thought this tattoo was a way of winning the parents over, so you could get more tattoos.
4. Dagger & Snake Tattoo: Another classic I can identify with, as my father had this tattoo. The dagger was piercing a heart with my name underneath. What was he trying to say?
5. Pin-up Girl Tattoo: A vintage design that has stood the test of time, still seen today in many themes, or on its own. But one pin-up girl who has disappeared is the Hula girl. Sorry to say, she hula’s no more.
6. Spider Web Tattoo: A Great classic that has survived and is usually seen in conjunction with scary themes. You do though; still see the odd spider web on the elbow.
7. American Indian Tattoo: Love this design. Most people who got this tattoo design were not American Indians, or more than likely, had never met one, but they did want to capture the spirit of the Indian, and what’s wrong with that?
8. Love Heart Tattoo: Still a very popular design with people of all ages, and for good reasons. This symbol of love has come a long way in design since the arrow through the heart was your best choice.
9. Eagle Tattoo: you can’t talk about vintage and not mention the eagle. The eagle tattoo has stood the test of time, still as popular today with all freedom loving people.
10. Skull & Crossbones Tattoo: Last but not least, the skull tattoo design has had many makeovers, from ghoulish to funny, as a matter of fact if you are on Twitter; look up my user (sssportster), my logo is the same skull tattoo on my arm.

Of course, tattoo design has come a long way in the past 50 years, and the designs and colours are only limited by your imagination. Is there still room for the classics I’ve talked about? I like to think so, and I’m pretty sure any good tattoo artist would be happy to give you one of my top 10 vintage tattoos, with perhaps, a touch of today’s razzle, dazzle.

I like to share with you my thoughts to help you find the best tattoo artist in your area, so you will get your dream tattoo. I know from my own experience finding the right person can be daunting, and you want to get this step right because there is no point having the best tattoo design, if your tattoo artist is not the best.

So, how do you find a really good tattoo artist in your area? Word of mouth is a really good option because the person who is giving you this information can show you the artist work on their body, so you can determine for yourself if you like his or her style, and this is an important point, as tattoo artists are like any other artist, in that they have their preferred style, as we do. I think it would be better to work with someone in sync with your own ideas rather than just going through the motions.

If you use the above method I would also get the name of the tattoo parlour this person works at, and pay a visit before you commit to something you may regret. Look around to see how clean the shop is, an important point if you don’t want to walk out with more than a tattoo. Go through the flash catalogues and what is on the walls to see if you like what they present. Also, does it look like a happy work place; you don’t want your body inked by someone who is tense or angry.

Secondly, if you don’t know anyone with tattoos then don’t be afraid to walk up to an inked person and ask questions. Most tattooed people are very proud of their tattoos and are happy to talk about them.

Another option is to join a reputable tattoo design site. At the end of this article you will see a link to my site where I have information on the best 4 design sites on the internet. To give you some idea of why to choose this option, one of these sites has over 10,000 tattoo studios to choose from 38 countries, and I can tell you from experience this was a big help. I am from Melbourne, Australia and I found plenty of good artists to choose from, plus they have an area where members rate tattoo artists, both good and bad. Helpful information, I’d say.

And a membership in one of the above design sites gives you access to thousands of award winning designs, and you get to see these designs in the comfort of your own lounge room. Now, if you don’t think that is important I will tell you a story of where I went wrong. For my first tattoo I made all of the above mistakes. I picked a tattoo parlour (just because it was close to home), I had an idea in my head what I wanted (snake and dagger tattoo), and I walked out with a tribal butterfly tattoo?

How could this happen, you may ask? Bad preparation, for starters; once you have decided on your design take a copy of it and say this is what I want. Your tattoo artist can always make suggestions to alter or improve your choice, and there is nothing wrong with that, but in the end you have to be happy, or end up like me, paying for an expensive cover-up.