How to Open a Tattoo Shop

Video Transcript

"When you're going to start a tattoo shop, location is definitely an important factor. Depending upon the kind of tattoo shop that you're opening, whether it's a custom shop or a conventional production style shop, the way you set up your shop is going to vary, depending upon your....your target market. If you're going to open up a custom shop, like what I have here, the location in relationship to the rest of the city, isn't necessarily crucial, because it's more of a destination. People will seek it out as opposed to just passing by noticing it. For this location, they basically provided us with a empty shell that I got to build from the ground up. I got to choose the unit. I got to choose, basically, everything about it. We're on the upper level here, so all the big picture windows have a spectacular view, so, not only is the client entertained by the view, but also the artists are inspired by the mountain range and the trees and the river, and all that. It's important for your artists to feel inspired. In our shop, we've got the...all of our retail and jewelry and all that right up front here. So right as you walk in the door, there's a variety of jewelry and well-lit display cases, eye candy. Something the customer can basically occupy their time with looking at while they're....if you don't get a chance to wait on them right away, there's something for them to look at. So as the customer comes into the shop, we have a waiting area right in the front here. It's seldom that somebody comes into the shop alone, so, while they're waiting for their friends, or waiting for their turn, they've got a comfortable place to sit, and look at your portfolios, here. So, when the customer comes in, they have nice, high quality pictures of your work to look at, not only creating credibility for you as an artist, but also to give them something to think about when they're considering getting tattooed by you. Also having a media available. I've got a PS3 in here so that they can wile away the hours playing video games, or get on the internet with it. Also we've got it set up to play movies, or, basically keep people occupied while they're waiting. As we come into the tattoo shop a little bit more, we've got our drawing area here. We've got this nice, smooth, clean drawing area for the artist to work on and access to the internet to pull reference material. And as we come over here we've got a light table. This is a crucial part of a tattoo artists arsenal. The light table allows us to basically reference anything that we might pull off of the internet, or a customer might bring in to basically create an ideal tattoo design for 'em. And as we come in to the tattoo shop, we've got the pool table and other creature comforts. The little library where people can look at books, and chairs, and other seating for 'em. And then the artists stations are all set up along the wall here. So these are how our work stations are set up. They have three granite shelves. They're non-porous, and easily disinfected. We also put a cellophane barrier as we're working. Some people use dental bibs to create that non-porous barrier, but, basically having everything in your station disinfectable is important. Also, using plastic baggies or barrier tape to bag all of your stuff in is also an important thing to be able to do. In our shop, we have more of an open atmosphere. If we need privacy, we put up privacy screens, but it is kind of a social, tribal experience. So, making it so that the customers can talk to each other and the artists can talk to each other makes it a more enjoyable experience. So that's why we have our shop kind of open. So when you're putting together your tattoo shop, your sterilization, cleaning area, should be sequestered from the rest of it. It doesn't have to be an elaborate set up, just as long as it's not out amongst the traffic. This is basically where we sterilize and clean our used tubes. We use as much disposable items as we possibly can, but the things that do need to be sterilized get processed here."