# American Traditional Tattoo Flash

> The stock designs of twentieth-century American tattoo shops: eagles, anchors, swallows, roses, hearts, daggers, panthers, skulls, ships, pin-ups and nautical stars, each drawn as an isolated emblem with a bold black outline, black shading and a few saturated flat colours (mainly red, yellow and green) chosen to stay legible on skin for a lifetime. Painted or printed on sheets and hung on shop walls, the designs carry vows, luck and service memories, and the look now travels far beyond the tattoo shop.

- Period: 1900–present
- Where: North America, Global / networked
- Origin: Tattoo shops and carnival booths in US port towns, navy cities and amusement piers, which hung their stock designs ('flash') where walk-in customers could choose them: Cap Coleman, Amund Dietzel in Milwaukee (1913-1967), Bert Grimm on the Nu-Pike in Long Beach, Norman 'Sailor Jerry' Collins on Hotel Street and later Smith Street in Honolulu. Start date approximate.
- Branch: Traditions & vernacular
- Also known as: Old school tattoo, Western traditional, Traditional tattoo, Sailor Jerry style, Tattoo flash sheets
- Page: https://stylogeny.com/styles/american-traditional-tattoo-flash/

## Use it with care

Tattoo flash is the working craft of a living community of tattooers, who still trade, copy and repaint the old sheets by their own customs, and Sailor Jerry Ltd holds the commercial rights to Collins's letters, art and flash: draw new designs in the idiom rather than lifting a named artist's flash for branding or merchandise. Period sheets also include caricatures of other peoples, exoticised hula girls and geishas, and wartime jingoism; leave those out when quoting the style.

## How it works

- Draw every design inside a heavy, even black outline that will still read after decades on skin.
- Shade with solid black and fill with a few saturated flat colours, mainly red, yellow and green, with no blending.
- Isolate each motif as a self-contained emblem with no background, sized to be traced and transferred.
- Wrap the image in a ribbon banner and letter a name or motto in script or shaded block capitals.
- Lay many designs side by side on one sheet so a customer can choose from the wall.
- Keep to a shared repertoire of patriotic, nautical, lucky and sentimental symbols, and make it yours by line and colour rather than by new subjects.

## Its design choices

Defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

### Layout & composition
- [Isolated object](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/isolated-object/) (defining)
- [Modular grid](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/modular-grid/) (characteristic)
- [Central symmetry](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/central-symmetry/) (occasional)

### Space & hierarchy
- [Single focal point](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/single-focal-point/) (characteristic)
- [Repetition & rhythm](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/repetition-and-rhythm/) (characteristic)
- [Horror vacui](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/horror-vacui/) (occasional)

### Typography
- [Hand-lettering](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/hand-lettering/) (defining)
- [Script](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/script/) (characteristic)
- [Ornamented display](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/ornamented-display/) (characteristic)
- [All caps](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/all-caps/) (characteristic)

### Colour
- [Flat fields](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/flat-fields/) (defining)
- [Limited spot colours](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/limited-spot-colours/) (defining)
- [Primary triad](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/primary-triad/) (characteristic)
- [Light ground](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/light-ground/) (occasional)

### Form & shape
- [Stylised figuration](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/stylised-figuration/) (defining)
- [Naturalistic depiction](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/naturalistic-depiction/) (occasional)

### Surface & texture
- [Flat](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/flat/) (characteristic)
- [Hard offset shadow](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/hard-offset-shadow/) (occasional)
- [Paper & letterpress bite](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/paper-and-letterpress-bite/) (occasional)

### Ornament
- [Emblems & badges](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/emblems-and-badges/) (defining)
- [Folk & sacred symbols](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/folk-and-sacred-symbols/) (characteristic)
- [Floral & vegetal](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/floral-and-vegetal/) (characteristic)
- [Cosmic & celestial](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/cosmic-and-celestial/) (occasional)

### Imagery
- [Line illustration](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/line-illustration/) (defining)
- [Icons & pictograms](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/icons-and-pictograms/) (occasional)

### Medium & production
- [Pen, brush & ink](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/pen-brush-and-ink/) (defining)
- [Hand-painted](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/hand-painted/) (characteristic)

### Tone & intent
- [Romantic & sensual](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/romantic-and-sensual/) (characteristic)
- [Nostalgic & retro](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/nostalgic-and-retro/) (characteristic)
- [Communal & popular](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/communal-and-popular/) (characteristic)
- [Rebellious & subversive](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/rebellious-and-subversive/) (occasional)
- [Warm & approachable](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/warm-and-approachable/) (occasional)

Avoids: Gradients, Pastel, Straight photography, Ornament-free, Grotesque & neo-grotesque, Gloss & highlights, Non-representational, Rational & objective

Palette: #111111, #c8102e, #f2c12e, #1f7a3a, #f1e4c8

Typefaces: Script names and mottoes lettered in ribbon banners, Shaded and drop-shadowed block capitals in the sign writer's manner, Numbers beside each design on the sheet, for choosing from the wall

Known for: Norman 'Sailor Jerry' Collins (1911-1973), flash from his Honolulu shops on Hotel Street and at 1033 Smith Street, Chinatown; his flash drawings shown at the Musée du quai Branly, Paris, and the Field Museum, Chicago; Amund Dietzel, the 'Master in Milwaukee', who tattooed there from 1913 until the 1967 city ban and claimed more than 5,000 designs; Milwaukee Art Museum exhibition 'Tattoo: Flash Art of Amund Dietzel' (2013); August 'Cap' Coleman (1884-1973), who made flash more readable and durable with strong black outlines and shading; Milton Zeis (1901-1972), whose mail-order tattoo supply business sold thousands of flash designs in the 1940s and 1950s; Lew Alberts (1880-1954), prolific maker and seller of sheets of designs on which many shop designs were based; Bert Grimm's shop at the Nu-Pike, Long Beach, sold to Bob Shaw in 1970; Don Ed Hardy and Mike Malone, Collins's protégés, who with Steven Grasse founded Sailor Jerry Ltd (1999) to hold the rights to his flash

## Where it comes from, and what it’s close to

- Influenced by: [Hand-Painted Signage & Vernacular Lettering](https://stylogeny.com/styles/hand-painted-signage.md) (1800–present)
- Influenced by: [Victorian Letterpress & Wood Type](https://stylogeny.com/styles/victorian-letterpress.md) (1810–1900)
- Influenced by: [Ukiyo-e Woodblock Prints](https://stylogeny.com/styles/ukiyo-e.md) (1670–1900)
- Alike in its design choices: [Pardhan Gond Painting (Jangarh Kalam)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/gond-painting.md) (1981–present), 67% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Woodland School (Legend Painting)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/woodland-school.md) (1962–present), 66% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Sudanese Revolution Graphics (Digital Illustrations and Sit-in Murals)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/sudanese-revolution-graphics.md) (2018–present), 65% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Skateboard Deck Graphics](https://stylogeny.com/styles/skateboard-graphics.md) (1973–1989), 65% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Mithila (Madhubani) Painting](https://stylogeny.com/styles/mithila-painting.md) (c. 1350–present), 65% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [See Red Women's Workshop Feminist Screenprints](https://stylogeny.com/styles/see-red-womens-workshop.md) (1974–1990), 65% alike

## Sources

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_school_(tattoo)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailor_Jerry
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_(tattoo)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amund_Dietzel
- https://mam.org/exhibitions/amund-dietzel/
- Jon Reiter, These Old Blue Arms: The Life and Work of Amund Dietzel (Solid State Publishing, 2010)

---

From Stylogeny (https://stylogeny.com/), an atlas of graphic-design styles by Van Riel Online Services. How it is made: https://stylogeny.com/about/. Cite as: Stylogeny, “American Traditional Tattoo Flash”, https://stylogeny.com/styles/american-traditional-tattoo-flash/