The Church Tattoo

The brief

A busy Victorian schoolhouse studio with 10 resident artists, founded in 2016, with a waiting list built off Instagram and nowhere serious to send people. They needed a proper home for the brand and the artists, a clear booking flow, and a credible base on Google. The goal was a site that looked as considered as the work itself and made it easy to enquire about the right artist, not just the studio in general.

What we did

• 17 fast, prerendered pages: home, artists index, 10 artist detail pages, studio gallery, aftercare, testimonials, contact, and a holding shop page
• Brand-led artist roster styled as a Mortal Kombat arcade screen, with insert-coin start, in-cabinet music, and a sound on selection (client brief: the owner is a lifelong Mortal Kombat fan)
• Each artist's booking button opens a pre-filled email straight to that artist by name, so enquiries never land in a shared inbox
• Contact form wired to Web3Forms with a mailto fallback and a honeypot for spam
• Studio gallery, aftercare accordion, and a testimonials section using real Google reviews
• Full SEO and generative engine setup: structured data for the business, all 10 artists and reviews, sitemap, robots, llms.txt. Lighthouse 96 SEO, 100 accessibility, 100 best practices
• Branded email signature for the studio, hosted on the site with a private install guide at /signature for staff
• Handover document at /handover with content instructions and brand reference for the team

The numbers

Gallery

What we said no to

• Tattoo studio cliches. Gothic typefaces, dripping ink textures, and biker fonts were off the table. The studio is a Victorian schoolhouse with serious artists and the site reads as that.
• A booking widget or CRM. The Church works on relationships, so enquiries go straight to the artist by email, addressed to them by name. No middleware between client and artist.
• WordPress. The studio's content changes a few times a year, not daily. A heavy CMS would have been overhead, not infrastructure.

Common questions

• How do you build a website for a tattoo studio with multiple artists?

  We give each artist their own space and route enquiries straight to them. For The Church Tattoo, a 10-artist studio in Wythall, Birmingham, we built 17 fast prerendered pages including 10 individual artist detail pages, and each artist's booking button opens a pre-filled email addressed to that artist by name, so nothing lands in a shared inbox.

• Can you make enquiries go to the right person instead of a general inbox?

  Yes. Every artist at The Church Tattoo has their own direct booking email, and their button opens a pre-filled message to them by name. The studio works on relationships, so we deliberately skipped a booking widget or CRM and kept enquiries going straight from client to artist.

• Do I need WordPress or a CMS for a small studio website?

  Not always. The Church Tattoo changes its content a few times a year, not daily, so a heavy CMS would have been overhead rather than infrastructure. We built the site in Next.js as fast prerendered pages and left a handover document at /handover with content instructions and brand reference for the team.

• Will a custom-built site show up on Google and AI search?

  Yes, that is built in from launch. The Church Tattoo went live on Google Search Console on day one, with structured data for the business, all 10 artists, and reviews, plus a sitemap, robots, and llms.txt. It scored 96 for SEO, 100 for accessibility, and 100 for best practices on Lighthouse.

• Can the design have real personality without looking like a stereotype?

  Yes. The owner is a lifelong Mortal Kombat fan, so we styled the artist roster as a Mortal Kombat arcade screen with insert-coin start, in-cabinet music, and a sound on selection. We still avoided tattoo cliches like gothic typefaces and dripping ink, because the studio is a serious Victorian schoolhouse and the site reads as that.

Stack

• Next.js 16 (App Router, Turbopack)
• React 19
• TypeScript 5
• Tailwind v4
• GSAP and ScrollTrigger
• Lenis smooth scroll
• SplitType
• Web3Forms
• Vercel