I am talking about the overused tribal black line works on the shoulder, the barbed wire around the upper arm and the tribal dragon style designs. Not that anything is wrong with these inherently. They started out life as well intentioned tattoo designs that at the time were hip. However, after everyone and their brother have the same design they are no longer hip and just a old fad. Pretty soon your tattoo looks like old reruns of the Jefferson's or Gilligan's island kind of hokey and old fashioned.
So how can you prevent this and come up with cool ultra unique tattoo design ideas for men?
The firs thing that you can do in planning for your ultra cool original tattoo design is the location. There are always new place son the body to get a tattoo. For example the old forearm sailor tattoo has probably been overdone as a location. Unless you are going retro and giving a throwback in your tattoo design then try something different. The shoulder, chest and armband have all been done endlessly. For something unique think of a different places that has not been over used. For example the calf muscle, rib cage, back of the bicep and etc. One of the things about location is it often is dependent on the design also. So a pinup girl on the forearm is pretty unoriginal however a tribal turtle on the forearm is a lot more unique and original. Carefully consider where you want to get your tattoo placed and then take it to the next step.
Thinking Symbolism
The next step to a great tattoo design is to think about the symbolism of the tattoo. What thought, feeling, emotion to you want to symbolize? Do you want to show a life change that you have made, strength, power, and overcoming death? Whatever the mood, option, feeling or thought that you want to portray is there is probably some symbol that can be connected with it. For example a skull or even a pile of skulls might represent a near death experience. By thinking about the underlying thought or feeling you want to portray first you can then second find a design that works with that.
Now is the best part you can take some time once you have identified the location and the type of symbol you want to use in your tattoo and you can find other tattoos that fit those. It might be that you are looking for a skull tattoo design. So you find a bunch of other skull tattoos that others have gotten. You can then tweak it to fit your situation. Use your resources and either be a DIY, or a Do It Yourself type person and create your own tattoo or hand over the resources to a professional and have them design the tattoo for you.
