FROM FILING CABINETS TO three iPads.
Brandie Medina has been tattooing for 24 years and running her own studio for 15. She petitioned the city to legalize tattooing in her area, then spent a decade dragging her paperwork into the 21st century. Tattoo Studio Pro is where it landed.
A studio built on its own terms.
Steel and Ink Studio is more than a tattoo shop. It's a sanctuary for art and self-expression in St. Louis, Missouri. Owner Brandie Medina opened the doors in 2009 after moving from Southern California, and has built a 13-person crew of tattoo artists and piercers. Six women, four men, mixed styles, every age welcome from four to eighty-five.
The studio is drug-free by design. Brandie and her husband co-own the shop and they hold the line on it. The result is a higher quality of artist and a calmer client experience. Brandie calls it a safe space, and the regulars treat it that way.
"I started my own studio when I was 28. It was a lot different back then, especially for a woman in the industry."
Brandie Medina, Owner
The challenge.
When Brandie set up shop in 2009, tattooing was actually illegal in her area of St. Louis. She petitioned the city, got denied, petitioned again, and eventually got the permits. The first consent forms the local health department accepted barely existed. Birthday and license number, that was it. No question about whether the client had eaten, which is the kind of detail that lands someone on the floor.
So Brandie went to the health department, asked to add real questions, and pushed them to recognize ear piercing as body piercing. Forms got better. The volume of paperwork exploded. Missouri requires three years of records on-site at all times, which meant filing cabinets and a system that no one liked.
"Business started to get really busy and pretty hectic, and the system we had for paperwork wasn't doing it for us."
Brandie Medina
A long road to digital.
Steel and Ink went paperless in stages. First, scanning forms into a Drive folder. Then a consent-form app that synced back to iCloud. Each step saved some time and created a new problem, usually around finding a specific client's record months or years later.
The health department pushed back at every step. They had never seen digital consent forms in Missouri and weren't sure they were legal. Brandie sat down with them, walked through the forms, and made the case. They came around.
By the time Brandie found Tattoo Studio Pro, the studio was juggling three to four separate apps. A booking app, a paperwork app, a payroll app, and the Drive folder underneath it all.
Tattoo Studio Pro has been the most efficient app for us. Everything's right there for you.
What made the difference.
The unlock was the phone-number lookup. Pull up any client's history in seconds instead of scrolling Drive folders with thousands of documents in them. For a 15-year-old shop with deep client history, that's not a feature, it's the whole point.
Three iPads now sit at the front, one per kiosk. One handles piercings, one handles tattoos, and the third floats. The counter staff can check a client in. The artists can do it themselves if the counter is busy. Nobody waits in line to sign a form.
For artists, the ink log is the quiet win. Color, brand, batch number, all attached to the client. When someone comes back for a touch-up two years later, the artist can match the ink in seconds instead of guessing from a sticky note.
Guest artists ask about it on the way out. Brandie has had artists from Italy text her after a session asking what app the studio runs on.
"My favorite part of the app is the ease of use. Everything's right there for you. So as an owner, it makes it super easy."
Brandie Medina
The results.
Three to four apps collapsed into one. The only system Steel and Ink still runs alongside Tattoo Studio Pro is Square for payroll. Everything else, gone.
The client experience is smoother. People come in to get tattooed, not to fill out paperwork at a kiosk. The intake is thorough but quick. Counter staff aren't drowning in line management. Artists have client history at hand without chasing it down.
Behind the scenes, record-keeping is finally built for the compliance work the state requires. Three-year archive, searchable in seconds, ready when the health inspector walks in. Year over year, the studio is meeting its financial goals and Brandie says the app is part of why.
"It's definitely created a smoother process."
Brandie Medina
Support that listens.
One of Brandie's piercers was applying for her Missouri license, which requires logging hundreds of past procedures with ages, dates, and hours. Halfway through, the forms archive crashed. She emailed the team. We pushed a fix. Then it happened again, and the second fix solved a deeper bug in the forms search and archive that had been quietly affecting other studios too.
Her piercer got her license. The whole forms experience got better for everyone. That kind of feedback is how the product actually improves.
"I don't have any complaints. If we have an issue, you're quick with it, you bring a resolution fast, and we are grateful for that."
Brandie Medina
Her advice for other studios.
Switching systems is intimidating, especially for studios that have been running on paper or duct-tape software for years. Brandie's been through every version of it. Her take is simple.
"It's a little intimidating in the beginning, but it's worth it. The setup is a little bit harder if you're not used to it, but once you get the hang of it, it's so much easier to run your business. I'd set that baby up today and run with it."
Brandie Medina
Thank you for developing Tattoo Studio Pro and making my life so much easier.