Search
Heartbeat tattoos are generally depicted as a jumping geometric line or the classic figural heart shape worked into the medical EKG line.
The medical aspect of this tattoo belies an added layer of meaning. A heartbeat tattoo is often dedicated to someone that has survived a medical emergency or to someone lost that still lives on in your heart. Many tatted ladies even use a heartbeat tattoo to memorialize their own health struggles, whether they have had a heart attack and came out alive or they are currently living with a pacemaker or transplant.
If you are considering this design as an homage, then a great way to make its intent clear is to personalize it. That might mean incorporating the birth date of a child or the name of a parent or partner. It could also mean bringing in an actual picture or printout of an EKG reading.
Health nuts like the heartbeat line because they associate it with their own powerful pulses. People with a deep love for their hometowns or adopted cities sometimes ask artists to create a skyline with the heartbeat. The straightforward aesthetic means it’s a tattoo you can proudly and prominently place and not have to hide for professional purposes.
It’s no surprise that the heartbeat tattoo is also popular among medical professionals who see the line on machines every day. Heart surgeons, transplant workers, and nurses all have strong familiarity with the line and see its powerful, symbolic appeal in a deeply personal way.
If a heart tattoo alone is too predictable or saccharine for you, then the abstract but easily identifiable shape of a heartbeat line makes for a more modern alternative.
