Follow Your Dreams: Friendly tattoo & piercing studio
Established in 2010, Follow Your Dreams tattoo and piercing studio has a loyal following and it's not hard to see why. Their family-friendly vibe and incredibly high quality service are known far and wide. We chatted to Emily from the team to find out more about FYD.
Can you tell us a bit about Follow Your Dreams and how it got started?
Follow Your Dreams is a piercing and tattoo shop on Devonshire Street. The shop was opened by Tacho Franch almost a decade ago, and at the time he was living in Sheffield with his family and travelling to Leeds or London to tattoo. He would often be on the same train as his client so he thought he'd open a shop in Sheffield to keep his local client base and to take a break from all the travelling.
You've got three incredible resident tattoo artists at FYD. Can you tell us a bit about them and their experience?
We have three incredible resident artists working at FYD. Tacho is the owner and world-renowned for his traditional Japanese paintings and tattoos. David Barry works with us two days a week. He mostly tattoos traditional flash but can pretty much do anything. It's the same with our newest member, Rich Smith. Between them they have over 30 years experience of tattooing.
Do you host guest artists? Who have been your favourites?
We love to host guest artists. They're often from South America, where owner Tacho is from and he usually hosts them in his house. We also host friends in the industry and people from further afield. Having guest artists is fun and we love the diversity of styles and personalities that comes with hosting. We have had too many guest artists to name a favourite.
You moved into a new studio in 2019. What has the move meant for FYD?
We moved into a fresh new studio in June 2019 and have been on a steady rise ever since. The move has brought us a lot more space, allowing us to hire two professional piercers and another tattooist to work alongside the existing artists. Bringing in fresh new workers has enabled us to offer a lot more to our clients and has given rise to the already existing family vibe of FYD.
You've recently rebranded the piercing side of the studio. What does this mean in practice? Are we right in thinking you've set your sights on becoming UKAPP registered?
We recently rebranded the piercing side of the studio to keep it in line with the theme of Japanese tattoos, which owner Tacho is known for. There are at least five piercing shops in the centre of Sheffield now, so as well as providing high quality piercings and customer service, we are also offering fine jewellery and competitive prices.
Our long term aim is to become UKAPP registered, which stands for Association of Professional Piercers. They have extremely high standards regarding everything piercing related, from the jewellery specification to the signs in your establishment. There are only a handful of studios in the UK who are APP registered and it is our long-term goal to become one of the few.
How important is it for you to create a family-friendly, welcoming atmosphere in the studio?
Creating a family-friendly, welcoming atmosphere in the studio is so important to us. It underpins our whole ethos and it really does feel like a family for those who work in or visit the FYD shop.
What's on the horizon for FYD in 2020?
The sky's the limit in terms of the future for FYD. We've already rebranded the piercing side and brought a good friend and incredible piercer, Nathan, on board. We have also updated our Instagram and are even learning about hashtags! And we're working on collecting good reviews from all the people who leave the shop with a beautiful piece of art to help boost our profile in Sheffield and to continue giving our clients the best service we can.
Follow them on Instagram @fydtattoo and on Facebook.
Flick Jackson
