Tattoo Master 30

I got an email from Bill Collier, of MancFrank PR, about a survey that was done by motor bike insurance brokers, Carole Nash, about the growing popularity of tattoos in the UK. There is a lot of really interesting, but not too surprising, statistics covered in the email backing what we in the tattoo industry probably all already knew, tattoos and tattooing are big at the moment… and probably getting bigger.

Backing up what we can see for ourselves on the street these days, Google reports that, “… searches involving tattoos have doubled in the last ten years.” Let’s hope that’s potential customers and collectors doing some research… and not tattoo artists looking for quick and easy reference material!

One interesting stat was that Birmingham was crowned as the most tattooed city in the UK, with 48% of people living there boasting between eleven and fifteen tattoos! Way to go Birmingham, that’s one colourful population you got there in your city! Next up were Norwich and Glasgow who came a close second and third. Besides Bristol and Cardiff, the top ten cities were all in the north. I’ll refrain from making a southern joke here, though the temptation not to, is difficult. As far as design choice goes, it seems “a whopping 62%... had tattoos of flowers.”

But, the bit that I found most interesting was the most popular styles by city. Here there was definitely a mix of, ‘I should have guessed’ and ‘yeah right’. Geometric was found to be the most popular style in London, with Polynesian/Maori being the style of choice in Aberdeen. In Leeds the style tended to lean towards tribal, whilst in Liverpool memorial tattoos were the firm favourite. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions on that data!

There are loads more interesting statistics in the email, so much so, I might print the whole piece out in a future issue. But overall, the impression that it gives, not just in the data but in the fact that some one actually gave the go ahead for this survey to be done, is that more than just us ink lovers are starting to take this whole tattoo malarkey quite seriously. As much as it sounds like a sell out thing to say; if an insurance company is interested enough to find out some raw hard stats about tattooing, there means there is money in it… and if there is money in it, it’s popular.

But rather than look at this as a negative thing, we should look at it as a positive. Yeah, it’s getting bigger and bigger and not everyone is in it for the right reasons (artist, business and client wise)… but it does mean, in a field (art) where it is always a struggle to make money relying only on your creative side, you guys are getting to do what you love most and get paid good money for it.

And for us fans, well we just to get bigger and better ink! And that’s a win win situation as far as I can see.

-Trent