TT Design Books

Tattoo designs

The great beauty of Polynesian tattoos, beyond their particularly eye-catching aestethics, resides in their ability to tell stories.

Each symbol, each element, can be used to create a story or to represent possessed or desired traits and characteristics.
On this account each tattoo designed in Polynesian styles is strictly connected to the person it was prepared for.
Polynesian tattoos always have meanings and should be personal, but we´ve seen many tattoos that hardly seem Polynesian and thought that having basic designs as a starting point could help improve that.

We thus decided to prepare a series of drawings unrelated to specific personal stories, more general, so that they could be used as a basis and personalized.

This is the philosophy behind the book series "TT Design Books": designs that feature several Polynesian styles and represent a specific subject in a simple way not connected to personal stories.
This way they can be used as starting points that can be modified to create more personal tattoos.

Included in the series are the 4 books composing the "Ocean Legacy" volume (mantas, turtles, sharks and sealife) plus a bonus book collecting designs related to protection like manaia, tiki and lizards, totaling 121 drawings.
Each design is in vector format and can be resized indefinitely without getting blurred, with related stencil and short description.

• 1. Mantas:
  
  
  Mantas are amazing animals usually associated to several different meanings, some depending on their nature and behaviour, some inherited from legends and stories.
• 2. Turtles:
  
  
  The turtle, or honu, is an important creature throughout all Polynesian cultures and has been associated to several meanings like health, fertility, long life, family, navigator.
• 3. Sharks:
  
  
  Sharks represent protection, guidance and strength, fierceness, the warrior, but they are also symbols of adaptability in many cultures; hammerhead sharks are representative of great tenacity and determination.
• 4. Sealife:
  
  
  Aumakua is the name given to protector spirits who are related to a family, usually being deities or deified ancestors often appearing disguised in the shape of sea creatures or birds.
• BONUS. Protection:
  
  
  Many tattoos from all Polynesian cultures often share a common trait: they include elements representing protection.
  It´s easy to understand why: protection was often needed from enemies and environment, and tattoos, being a sacred connection to the gods, were the ideal way to channel protection upon men.
  Grab your free copy!