Decoration and Interior design are not complete without a proper floral design display. Flowers and plants, colors, and textures are the quintessential part of any design project. Today we share key aspects of a floral designer’s profession.
Florists and visual artists have a lot in common. They are both aware of sensations and aesthetics in their creations, also producing a deep emotional connection from the audience to the floral displays.
Not all floral designs can be considered art, however, every floral design has a certain applied art that elevates the craft. A floral designer must design an integrated concept with the environment, know when a color or a type of plant or flower is trending, and determine which flowers or other types of plant material work better according to the occasion.
Any design concept must begin with deciding which natural or manmade materials are going to be used, then defining the height and width of the installation, whilst always keeping in mind the key theme of the project.
Floral designers sometimes start in the profession by treating it as a hobby or doing on-demand requests for family and friends. Nevertheless, studying Interior Design or Decoration can blend perfectly with the innate ability to set floral bouquets or centerpieces for special occasions.
As in any discipline close to design, developing an approach to culture, art, literature, contemporary dance, or architecture can fuel our imagination and creativity when it comes to making projects or creating floral designs conceived to generate a high impact in an event.
The method of being the apprentice remains the most popular way to start off in the business of floral design. In this way of training, the person learns different floral designs and arrangement techniques.
If you want to learn broader aesthetic concepts, doing a decoration or an interior design course is a clever plan that can help you to understand design concepts wisely, also practical tools to create your own spaces, and to decorate events or celebrations. Several occupations related to arts and crafts, such as ceramist artist, mosaic artist, painter, or sculptor, can boost your decoration ideas.
Decoration and Purpose: Art Floral Designers Worth Knowing
Lewis Miller
Lewis Miller is the creative mind behind Lewis Miller Designs. He is known for wedding and party arrangements in New York City. He comes from a three-generation of gardeners in such a way that the craftsmanship runs wild from his veins.
Miller has worked with fashion and big retail and financial businesses adorning their spaces. However, his creativity has no limits as he is widely known for his “Flower Flashes” guerrilla floristry displays around Manhattan at early dawn, with the help of a small team of his studio.
They are placed in various locations, such as bus stops, monuments, traffic signs, garbage cans, parks, or abandoned buildings. Lewis wants to “create an emotional response through the flowers”, and observe the effect in people with an in-real-life display.
It all started back in 2016 when he and his team put 2,000 flowers on the John Lennon Memorial in Central Park, a circular mosaic resembling a mandala with one word in the center: IMAGINE. “Flowers for the People”, as he named the project, was about witnessing a random act of kindness.
Azuma Makoto
Azuma Makoto is a Japanese floral artist, a great botanical sculptor, and founder of JARDINS des FLEURS, located in Aoyama, Tokyo. The florist creates ” haute couture” flower arrangements, as well as flower decorations for exhibitions, TV commercials, movies, or any other project that requires his wide range of flower expression. He has worked with Fendi, Dries Van Noten, and Helmut Lang.
His most notorious work, besides the shop, is AMKK (Makoto Azuma, Flower Tree Research Institute) a group that “develops experimental creations on the theme of flowers and plants…finding the most mysterious shape of the flower and converting it to an artistic level”.
This includes The Exobiotanica Project, in which AMKK launched a bonsai tree and a flower bouquet into space; In Bloom, where Azuma created a huge sculpture of flowers in the middle of the ocean; Frozen Flowers, where the floral artist created in Hokkaido, Japan, -in the middle of a frozen zone- an installation of frozen flowers from all over the world. Azuma’s purpose is to create this unusual installation in environments where flowers usually do not exist.
Creativity and innovation are two great skills for any floral designer, as well as craftsmanship, a sense of style, and the appreciation of plants as the ultimate miracle.
Do you want to learn more about this topic? Find more in the Interior Design program.