Mark Prata from Toronto Ink came to me with an idea for the outside of his shop, Toronto Ink Tattoo and Laser Studio. He wanted to do a 10ft 6in X 12ft banner for the side of the building outside to cover a brick wall. He also wanted to do something that wasn’t dark yet wasn’t to “Fun” so that it could appeal to everyone, not just bikers and stuff like that because it is a tattoo and laser shop and he does all kinds of tattoo’s. So I took all of that into consideration, also bearing in mind that you can see the right side of the banner from the freeway. He sent me a photograph that someone took of the shop crew out by the lake and wanted me to work with that. I said how in the world could I get this photo to look good on a 10ft banner. So my thoughts were to make it a vector and create outlines of them.

I made a black tracing of the crew and made sure to include some of their tattoo’s into the banner to show more personality. I figured the perfect idea is to have them sitting above the city of Toronto (The shop location) to signify them being above the city doing what they love. That’s how I came up with that idea and it worked great! I added the filler in the background with the jagged points all throughout the banner to give it some flare and fill. That pretty much wrapped up the whole entire banner.

I think it turned out pretty amazing and I nailed it dead on. He also loved it and didn’t want to change a single thing. I myself personally love the outlines of the crew and the fact that they are sitting above the city of Toronto, Canada with a yellow and orange burst behind them. The bird’s are actually part of their logo I created a while back in Illustrator with the pen tool that he fell in love with, so I decided to use them of course in the design as they fit the theme. The mix of only a few colors with the black and white couldn’t have been better.

Overall I think this banner will be amazing to see on the side of the building, infact I would love to have them take a picture once it up on the building so I can post it on the blog. It would also be cool to get Mark to come out to Detroit and tattoo it up! He’s an amazing tattoo artist and would love to have some of his art myself.
Take a look at Mark Prata’s Tattoo Portfolio Here.

Toronto Ink Tattoo and Laser Shop Banner:

Toronto Ink Tattoo and Laser Banner