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TATTOODLES
The internet flash superstore
by Jason Lambert
From the March 2004 issue of Prick Magazine.
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 Adam Sky. |
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Just over two years ago, founder Adam Sky started what is now the Internet's largest
source of online tattoo designs - Tattoodles.com. Starting with just a handful of artists
and a few hundred designs, the website has evolved into an ever-expanding tattoo
empire. Over the past year, Tattoodles.com has been feverishly
received by tattoo customers and tattoo artists alike.
Sky had a vision for Tattoodles which was to "give the client
a place to look for tattoo designs from the comfort of their
own homes, while also providing the largest online design
resource for the artist." With the growth of the site, his vision
has blossomed into its own community with several active
forums, artist profiles, over 500 contributing artists and an average
of 40 new memberships a day!
It began during the summer of '98
while Sky was working at Way Cool
Tattoos in Toronto. "At the time,
there were very few tattoo shops, at
least in Canada, that had a web site.
Way Cool had a site,
though, and I noticed it
brought them a lot of
business. A lot of their customers
were web savvy, and they were
bringing in screen grabs from BME and other tattoo web sites. Sadly, most of them were of
very bad tattoos, but the underlying notion was that Way Cool's customer base was using
the web to browse for and plan their tattoo ideas from home, on the Internet, and not by
visiting the tattoo shop first," says Sky.
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Sky and fellow Way Cool tattooer and friend, Kian, were throwing around the idea of a
tattoo database on the Web; somewhere tattooers all over the world could log on and
share and contribute to a tattoo design database or club. This was the spark and the rudimentary
idea behind the concept of Tattoodles. Sky says from the beginning, he and Kian
"decided that organizing tattoo flash into categories was of paramount importance; hence
I stayed away from publishing sheets of flash. I think we dreamed of having all the rose tattoo
designs on one wall and all the tribal arm bands on another. Tattoodles was going to be
the electronic equivalent of this."
The website is designed by Dave "Paps" Papinau of Prototype Design (www.prototypedesign.
ca). "When I pitched the concept of Tattoodles to the Prototype team," says
Sky, "I was clear about a look that would be appealing to someone who was ready to
start researching what might be their first tattoo, but wasn't quite charged with enough
bravado to set foot into their local tattoo parlor. I think Paps helped to create a site
that is fun, non-intimidating, but at the same time appeals to all levels of familiarity of
the tattoo world."
Since launching the site, a growing list of artists have submitted their work for posting
on Tattoodles. In return, artists are awarded a free lifetime membership for helping
build the site's portfolio. Sky also "searches out renowned flash artists and pays them
for the rights to display their work on Tattoodles.
"I was just speaking to Sam 'Skam' Jones from Solid Image Tattoo the other day and
he told me that Tattoodles has made him a lot of money from being left on for customers
to browse on his shop's computer. This was a great compliment. There's more
flash on Tattoodles.com than most shops have on their walls and we sell a very affordable
one year 'Professional' package targeted directly at tattoo shops that would prefer
to supplement their supply of tattoo designs directly from our online database.
"I visited a shop in Seattle that had touch screen monitors on the walls of their
shop, with each monitor linked up to a computer connected to Tattoodles. The rest of
their wall space was devoted to paintings and art. It was really elegant and modern. It
was exactly what I had in mind when I first conceptualized Tattoodles," says Sky.
Although there are other sites that offer a similar service, what makes Tattoodles
different from the rest is the shear volume and the prices. Other sites put strict caps
on how many downloads a subcriber can take advantage of. Tattoodles makes their
entire 6000 design database available for the same price that other sites offer for one
or two downloads. "For some people who only want one specific tattoo design, this
might be exactly what they’re looking for," says Sky, "but I feel that customers want to
look at a variety of possibilities when making the important decision of what their next
tattoo will be. I really feel that we've hit the nail on the head with what we have going,
especially with our liberal policy of 'giving the keys to the store' to every customer. It
can only be a positive thing for everyone involved from the tattoo artists that create
and contribute the work to the tattoo enthusiasts who help support the site."
Tattoodles is taking the next step in tattooing’s evolution as the age of communication
converge with this ancient art.
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