Inking a Better Tattoo Experience

Carson Hill, a longtime tattoo artist, wanted to reinvent the traditional, motorized tattoo gun. RKS embraced the challenge to design a device that would be more ergonomic, efficient, and autoclaved, so as to reduce the chance of disease transmission, pain and noise while increasing artistry.

To learn more about the tattoo experience, the RKS team followed experienced artists and their customers through the entire process of injecting ink into the skin during extensive work sessions. This research uncovered numerous hindrances to productivity for the artists, such as carpal tunnel, and excruciating pain and long healing times for consumers.

To address these concerns a pneumatic tattoo gun has been designed that features low air consumption, high efficiency and high torque, which provides great latitude for stroke length and motion. With this device, the artist can work twice as fast and the customer feels far less pain. By eliminating the electric motor, needles stay cooler, tissue damage was mitigated and healing time was lessened.