Tattoo Online Portfolio Website

Tattoo Online Portfolio Website

While many tattoo artists rely on social media to display their work, nothing’s more professional than a personal website. Read on to learn about what it takes to build an impressive online portfolio website.

Whether you’re a novice tattoo artist looking for an apprenticeship or a seasoned professional working on their online presence, a killer portfolio website allows future mentors, clients, and collaborators to find and learn about your work in a flash.

But what goes into a tattoo artist’s online portfolio website? Here are some vital tips and tricks to help you build the portfolio that will take your tattoo career to new heights.

How to Build an Online Portfolio Website for Your Tattoo Work

Before building a portfolio, it’s good to know some of the key differences between an apprentice’s and a working artist’s portfolio.

When you don’t have much experience as a tattoo artist, the best way to work your way up is with an apprenticeship. To score one with a reputable shop, you need a tattoo portfolio that shows off your potential to become a great tattoo artist. This means providing at least 50 to 100 of your best illustrations—in a range of tattoo styles, from old school traditional to watercolor.

For working tattoo artists, on the other hand, portfolios are carefully curated collections of your most impressive tattoo work, exemplifying your signature style as much as your talent. To build an impressive portfolio, you need to invest in decent photography equipment to capture the fine details of your best tattoo work, offer custom work to show off both your skill and ability to conceptualize new art, and gather email testimonials from happy clients.

Building a Website with Format

Between juggling clients, honing your style, and managing your shop, a website may not be something all tattoo artists can maintain. This is what makes a website builder like Format a great option for tattoo artists.

With Format, building a website is pain-free and takes as few as six steps. After signing up, you pick one template out of dozens that best complements your art. Then, you can choose at least 10 photos of your best tattoo pieces, and organize your work by gallery or custom page. Next, you can customize your site to your liking—this means changing fonts, background colors, and uploading custom logos.

Afterwards, you can edit your ‘About page’—this is where you introduce yourself, your background, and the kind of art you typically do. Include vital contact information such as your email and mobile number. Lastly, you can choose from Format’s array of add-ons, from a store to sell merch to the social media integration option.

Need inspiration? Check out some online portfolio website examples here.

Strengthen Your Brand

Offer a Variety of Different Types of Tattoo Art

Your portfolio should stand as a showcase of the various styles and subjects you’re capable of working with. For an aspiring apprentice, a diverse portfolio tells an employer that you’re not only flexible as an artist, but you’re also open-minded and willing to try anything outside of your comfort zone. For a working artist, showcasing a variety of styles on your website broadens your customer base.

One of the best ways to do this is to cover all your bases and show how adept you are at the different tattoo styles, from old school to neo-traditional. Do you do unconventional tattoos like makeup and coverups? Feel free to boast about this on your site too!

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Showcase Your Tattooing Style with Your Online Portfolio Website

Is your signature style a huge part of your brand? With a well-curated portfolio, you can make sure your signature style is front and center. With Format, you can pick a template with a header image to place work that exemplifies this. You can also curate a gallery consisting of the best tattoo work in that style, and make sure it’s the first thing people see when they visit your site.

Include Flash Tattoo Designs You've Created in Your Portfolio

Rather than purely posting individual pieces, consider adding tattoo flash sets to your portfolio. Aside from your standard market flash sets, you can also create collector flash sets to offer something new and exciting for your clients. Better yet, make these designs “limited edition”—meaning they can only be taken by a certain number of people for a set time.

With Format, you can create a custom page or gallery dedicated to all your flash sets.

Tattoo Design Portfolio FAQs

Here are five frequently asked questions tattoo artists often ask about building a new website.

You can create your own tattooing portfolio by first curating a collection of your best-tattooed work or designs of tattoos, then opening a website through a site builder like Format.

Starting with a theme that complements their brand and works, an artist can make their site as personalized as they wish on Format—something they can open and say feels “uniquely mine”.

Get started with Format. Looking for inspiration? Check out other artist portfolios here. To begin, sign up for a 14-day free trial here.

Tattooing portfolios must include clear and detailed images of the tattoo artists’ best works. Make sure tattoos can be seen in full, and not covered with clothing or other obstructions. Artists also need to include a section introducing themselves and their interests as artists, as well as their professional background. Also to be listed in the About section is your contact information, and you can also include links to your social media, along with your email.

Aside from photos of tattoos and an About section, you might want to include testimonials from people you’ve tattooed as well—provided you have their permission to post. It goes without saying that a testimonial needs to be truthful and honest, not something a friend or relative placed at your insistence.

If you have a now-defunct site that contains more or less everything mentioned above, just migrate all your content to an up-to-date and easy to use website like Format.

When you design and layout your website, you want to think about making it current while also complementing your tattoo style and your personal brand. Take the Kirk Sheppard Tattoos website, for example.

In their website, they present their tattoo designs using a clean, Instagram-like grid that resonates with their tattoos’ following. Their choice of graphic design and colors also speak to the aesthetics of today’s youth.

Of course, you should create your own brand and style, and keep it in mind when designing your own website.

There is no hard and fast rule about how long a tattooer’s portfolio should be. Instead, shops pay attention to the number of pieces found in would-be apprentices’ portfolios. A novice tattooist may include as much as 100 to 200 art pieces in their apprenticeship portfolio. If you’re already tattooing on clients and building a portfolio of past tattoos, it’s ideal to curate a lean but diverse portfolio of your most impressive tattooed works.

If you’re more of a designer than a tattoo artist, there are still tons of ways to make a profit off of designing tattoos. One method is by selling flash sheets to a shop. You can email various ships in your area to ask if any would like to purchase your flash sheets for a price. Another option is to offer a design service on your website on top of your regular tattooing gig.

Meanwhile, some designers have turned to the crowdsourcing website CreateMyTattoo, where people who want to get inked launch contests for the different take on their ideas. The winning designers get paid and their ideas are turned into tattoos!

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Build Your Tattoo Portfolio Today

If you want to impress mentors and clients with your tattoo and design skills, it pays to have a website that complements your work and your personal style.

With Format’s dozens of templates, you can customize your website any way you want, allowing you to build an impressive portfolio in just six easy steps. Try Format’s free portfolio builder for 14 days, then upgrade to a plan for as low as $10 a month.

Get Started Today. Create My Portfolio.
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