5 stunning pieces of Japanese tattoo art

Tattoo designs can be a great source of inspiration for creatives, from small ornamental ink to meaningful tribal tattoos. (And integrating them into your designs is easy wit hthe likes of tattoo fonts.) But it's also important to know the social and historical context in which they're created.

In Japan, the indigenous Ainu people used facial tattoos as membership symbols to their clans. In more recent history, tattoos have been the preserve of social outcasts and criminals. Even today, they are associated with the yakuza, the Japanese mafia, and if you have a visible tattoo you are often forbidden from entering a sento - the bath houses that form an integral part of Japanese community life.

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