Dzul Ink Lounge, Seattle

Behind a storefront nestled amid Belltown's bleeding-edge galleries and Art Deco artifacts, a quiet revolution is brewing. The shop is Dzul Ink Lounge, and inside, tattoo artists and brothers Jacob and Alex Dzul are out to turn decades of preconceptions on their collective ear. Gone are the cheesy designs and abrasive alt-rock assaults that typify most tattoo parlors. Instead, visitors step into a lounge that has more in common with a contemporary art space, a quality that's also shared by the shop's vivid, customized tattoos. Whether they're getting their first tattoos or adding ink to an already impressive bodily canvas, clients can flip through an iPad filled with thousands of the shop's exclusive designs, or collaborate with one of the resident artists on designs that are as personal as they are precise.