Footprint tattoos are some of the coolest, most meaningful tattoos. They also happen to be some of the simplest designs to create, which makes them perfect for plenty of people.
People get their footprint tattoos for a variety of reasons, including for their children, their pets, or maybe even to pay tribute to someone they’ve never met in their lives. On this page, we will take a look at some of the reasons why people get their footprint tattoos in more detail and some of the ways that you can get one of these tattoos designed if you choose to get one.
Because an infant’s footprints are taken in the hospital after birth for use as a source of identification and remembrance, they are often used as the basis for footprint tattoos. These designs serve as a tribute to one’s children or children close to the individual, such as nieces and nephews. If you were looking for a great way to show that you love your child or children with some ink, footprint tattoos are excellent options since they usually don’t take up too much space but are just as meaningful as getting a full portrait in the design.
Footprint images are usually made into larger pieces with heavenly imagery like fluffy clouds and sunbeams in the background and angelic wings on either side of the print. This really comes down to your own personal tastes since you want to end up with a footprint tattoo that you will always be happy to look at and that you feel looks attractive.
You can mix and match some of the more popular images that are combined with footprint tattoos or you might choose to get the footprints by themselves. There’s no right or wrong way to get one of these tats designed.
Along with the footprints, lines from the popular poem “Footprints” or “Footprints in the Sand” (written by an unknown author) can be included in footprint tattoos. The poem is a reference to the reliability of God and the idea of placing faith in Him. This can give you a great combination of honoring your child or children while also ending up with a great religious tattoo. Of course, you might want to get this type of tattoo for the religious connotations alone, which also works.
Using the concept of the poem, footprints can be rendered within a background of sand, appearing to be walking along the beach. This image is a reference to the poem and not necessarily a tribute to a child. In this way, the design is a tribute to God and Christianity, capturing one’s personal faith.
Sometimes people will only include the footprints and the sand, while others will take the design a step further by embedding more religious images into the sand. This is actually a great way to put a bunch of great religious symbols into a single design without it looking too cluttered.
The dual footprints are also commonly transformed into other images such as tulips or other flowers, using the footprints of multiple children. The footprints serve as the petals, rendering a design that harkens to parenthood, memorializing the child or multiple children.
The name or names are sometimes used to create the stem and leaves of the flower. That is just one of the many ways that you can manipulate the footprint tattoo design to make it mean whatever you want it to mean. What’s great about this idea is that you can add additional meanings simply by changing the shape of the different elements in the design.
Footprints can also easily be used as the wings of a butterfly. The name of the person is often placed in the center, serving as the body of the butterfly, completing the image. Alternatively, a single footprint may be designed as the center of the body, allowing the wings to be rendered more realistically. While this may sound like it would be a very large footprint-tattoo design, you can actually make it work as a smaller piece.
Sometimes people will get footprints of a parent or a sibling to honor them. These can be the focal points of memorial tattoos, or they can even be mixed in with other meaningful images. In fact, you can very easily make a tattoo design that honors multiple family members simply by adding more footprints. This is the type of tattoo that just screams for creativity even though they don’t have to be very complex at all.
You can even get matching tattoos with a loved one or with a friend where you get the footprint designs on the exact same parts of your bodies. In these cases, the footprints don’t have to be the people’s actual footprints, but that could be seen as a good thing since they are meant to be personal tattoos.
Another very popular version of the footprint tattoo is the cat or dog footprint design. This is an excellent way to honor a family pet or even to show that you just love those types of animals. You might decide that you want a single paw print in the middle of your arm, or another way to get these designed is to have a full trail of prints that go down the middle of your back. When people get paw print tattoos of their own pets, they usually use their actual paw prints, though that isn’t totally necessary.
Names and birth dates are often included with the footprints, sometimes including both feet or just a single print. If you decide to go this route with your footprint tattoo you will want to find a font that blends in well with the print. In some cases, people look through a bunch of great fonts and find ones that match their designs, while in other cases they will design their own font to make sure that it has a uniform look with the footprints.
More generally, without any reference to a child, footprints are used to display the treading of a path, indicating past experiences. This is a fantastic way to show that you recognize that your experiences have shaped who you are and you are not the type of person who is constantly regretting past actions.
It can also be a way to show that you recognize your past mistakes and you have learned from them. Multiple sets of footprints are stacked or placed one after the other to appear as the tracks of a walked trail.
Most footprint tattoos are pretty easy to create, but you still want a good tattoo artist to do the work for you. The reason for this is because good artists will be able to help you make any last-second changes to your design and they will help you to choose the perfect place to put the tattoo.
It’s a really bad idea to think that footprint tattoos are simple designs so you should just walk into the first tattoo shop that you see. To ensure that you end up with exactly what you want, be sure to do a bit of research on the tattoo artists around you and then make your choice.
Hopefully you now see why so many people choose to get these footprint tattoos and whether this is a good tattoo idea for you. As we pointed out above, there are a bunch of great meanings that can be attached to these tattoos and quite a few ways to get them designed. They are the types of tattoos that people very rarely regret getting because they have such deep, personal meanings.
If you are thinking about getting a footprint tattoo, be sure to think long and hard about how and where you want to get it designed and then find a great tattoo artist to do the work for you.
Do all of that and you should end up with a footprint tattoo that you will be proud to wear on your skin for the rest of your life.