What do you think of when you hear “Old School Tattoo?” Most people might think of images with a heart and a banner with the saying “Mom” on it. There are actually many great old school tattoo designs but first what is an old school tattoo design? When you think of old school its something thats, well old. Something that might have been popular in the past and is not so much today. Old school tattoos usually refer to the 80’s and 90’s. What was popular then does not mean it won’t be popular today. Many people like biker gangs and sailors where the ones who were getting tattoos, but as time went by, just about anyone and everyone started getting them. Back in the 80’s mainly men where the ones getting tattoos as it was not as socially acceptable for women to get them.

It was the beginning of an era when the bikers and sailors started getting large forearm tattoo designs. Even my father who was in a biker gang as early as the 1970’s has a few tattoos. These ‘Old School Tattoo Designs’ where a way to tag their members. It was an honor and something earned back in those days because not just anyone got a tattoo. In fact if you got a tattoo and belonged to a biker gang and did not earn it, you would suffer huge consequences.

Just like with fashion cycles, what used to be out of style can come back into style and be more popular than before. This is the case with old school tattoos. With the most recent and major growth of the tattoo industry, there has been a rebirth of the old school tattoo design.

Today, these tattoos have been combined with new colors and bolder styles to make them a hot looking tattoo. If you search for the old school tattoo designs you can find what you like and then add your own flavor to it or make it more modern and yet old school at the same time. With tattoos there are no wrongs, just different styles.

Here’s a Look at Some Old School Tattoo Designs

Sailor Jerry Tattoos where some of the most famous of the old school tattoo artist. There is a lot of history on Sailor Jerry, but where he did most of his work was from a small tattoo shop in Hawaii where many sailors where stationed. Sailor Jerry had many unique and original tattoo designs that people would really fall in love with getting his style of tattoo. People still get his style of tattoos so searching the internet for his old school tattoo designs will give you tons of different results with different unique tattoos.

Gambling – Old School Tattoo Design

Gambling was one of the more popular tattoos back in the day and have become one of the old school designs. Many sailors would spend their time gambling as a way to pass time and this translated into them getting cards and dice as part of their tattoos. Gambling back then was illegal, but that did not stop them from getting these tattoos.

Pin Up Girls – Old School Tattoos

Being a sailor out at sea for long periods of times would be difficult for the entire boat full of men. This is where the Pin Up Girl tattoo became popular. Many men back then would get pin up girl tattoos and still today this is a popular old school tattoo design.

Sailing Anchors and Ship – Old School Tattoo Designs

Since sailors where the main people getting tattoos, anything to do with sailing, anchors and ships where popular. These became old school tattoos that are not as popular right now as they were in the past. These tattoo ideas could be big elaborate ship designs on their chest or forearms. Sailors would get the ship they were stationed on, tattooed on their body, or better yet pirate ships where popular too.

Of course there are many other old school tattoo designs, such as the swallow, certain stars like the nautical star and many others that were popular back in an age where tattoos were not nearly as popular as they are today. The options for getting an old school tattoo design is endless as you can always add some modern style to it as even with fashion, styles change over time and don’t necessarily go back to the exact same fashion as before.

Tattoo Designs Are Part Of History – Tattoo History

Tattoo designs are often the joining of two worlds. Most often they incorporate the world as you see it every day, and as you would like the world to be. When you pick a tattoo design and get body art you are becoming a part of history. It is no wonder then that the word tattoo is the joining of one world with another. The term comes from ‘ta’ which means ‘striking something’ in Polynesian with the Tahitian word ‘tatau’ which means to mark something. Wherever the word tattoo comes from, the history of this art began 5,000 years ago.  It began with people actually cutting the designs into their skin and flesh and pressing ink and ash into the wound.

We know that tattoo designs started this early by the discovery of a five thousand year old corpse in remarkably good condition on a mountain near the borders of Austria and Italy.  He had a collection of 57 tattoos.  There was a cross inside his left knee, six lines above his kidneys and numerous lines on his ankles.  They might have been marked off to show some accomplishment or they might have had some type of therapeutic purpose, but we can understand that tattoos have been around for a long time.

We can also look back to the Egyptians of the XI dynasty of 2160 BC, who tattooed lines, dots and geometric patterns probably for some ritualistic practice.  The Egyptians are the ones who spread this practice around the world as they developed trade routes.  Many countries such as Japan and China used the art of tattoo, but in Polynesia especially the practice is of huge historic significance.  The Polynesians became well known as the experts in this art as they passed down their secrets of tattoo in legends, songs and ritual ceremonies.

In modern times in the west, the sailors brought the colorful art to the shores of American and the United Kingdom.  The most common tattoo designs for these early fetishists were mermaids, flowers, hearts, snakes, birds, names and naturally nautical themes such as anchors, stars, pirate flags and waves.  From the shores, the art spread to prisons no doubt as way for the criminal subculture to express its separation for the rest of the society. The general public was fascinated by tattoos, but didn’t view them as decent.  Circuses exploited this by making freaks of people with large tattoos or who were covered in body art.  This allowed the masses to view tattoos from a safe distance.

In the 1990s there was major shift in how people saw others with tattoo designs.  Body art became an exciting means of expression for celebrities, college students, business men and women, and really anyone from any walk of life.

Some of the current most  popular types of tattoos are tribal, heart, butterfly, star, fairy, fish, lower back tattoos, dragon, flowers, angels, sun, Celtic, rose, tiger and dragonfly tattoos.