If you're a graphic designer, it's more than likely that you've considered getting a tattoo at some point. And not some swirly 'tribal' thing either. Something really unique. After all, if you make your trade playing with image and text, at some point you're going to think about putting one or the other on your body.

But being the total perfectionist that you are, you're going to think really long and hard about what exactly goes on there. (Earlier this year, Ben over at Noisy Decent Graphics posted an interesting chart about what sort of tattoos designers tend to get, and the reasons they might have for not getting them: 'couldn't choose a design' being the most common reason.) And you're going to want it to look absolutely perfect. It's not like you can get a wet-proof done first. Once it's on, it's on (or at least until you save the cash up for a bit of laser action).

So we figured it might be good to group together as many images as we could of graphic design style tattoos. To kick things off we've created the Graphic Ink Flickr group, and done a bit of a hunt round Flickr for the kinds of tattoos designers have already got. There's eighty or so tasty bits of ink in the group so far, but we're hungry for more. So if you've got a tattoo that fits the bill, submit it to the group, or drop it to us here. 

And you might also want to check out Ina Saltz's rather lovely Body Type, which also features Shelley Jackson's wonderful Skin project, (which is still looking for 695 more participants willing to get a word inked on their body).

And those pictures up top are (clockwise from top left): Lorem Ipsum (in 22pt Fertigo) from Amy French, a Minion Ornaments hedera from Karen Jeanette, Love Rat from Alex Ran (and Banksy), and CMYK and blots from Katarzyna Rostalska.

UPDATE

Ina Saltz has been in touch to let us know that Volume 2 of Body Type is underway at the moment. She's got a bit of space left in it, so if you've got a fantastic typographic tattoo, she'd love to see it. Check out the Body Type website, or drop her a shot of your ink via email. (The picture needs to be in .jpg format, no larger than 1MB. Write a message about your tattoo, where & when you got it and why; and what it means to you. Include your contact information and a little background about yourself.)