AUOUST 5, 1909. 



The Weekly Florists' Review^ 



THE RETAIL 



S..«.^,f^,^ FLORIST 



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I 

 I 



ORIGINALITY IN DESIGNING. 



Dreamt of Artistic Beauty. 



The best designers find that their best 

 woik has been accomplished by means of 

 practical experience combined with quick 

 thought along different lines. The flower 

 busiuess is like a great many other sorts 

 of business in this way, that there have' 

 been rules and regulations created in 

 past years which nearly all designers 

 have followed, but we find that ideas of 

 a new, artistic nature have always been 

 created by means of a quick act of the 

 imagination or a so-called dream. By 

 this I mean that the man who has always 

 confined himself to one special way of 

 doing this or that design, and has no 

 natural love of beauty and naturalness, 

 cannot see these so-called dreams of ar- 

 tistic beauty. 



I have always found that a designer 

 must not only be able to study his work 

 closely, but must also have an extraor- 

 dinary taste for everything beautiful or 

 artistic, wherever he finds it, whether in 

 the flower business or elsewhere. In each 

 thing of beauty he may find something 

 that will be helpful to him in the artistic 

 line. 



The Demand for New Ideas. 



There must be a natural instinct in a 

 designer in order to* win success, and 

 that instinct must be taken care of and 

 trained like a child. Thus, as the de- 

 signer's experience increases he may see 

 new dreams of beauty. I think there 

 should be more of a desire to create new 

 designs and artistic features in all kinds 

 of work, as the times are changing fast 

 and we find that what the up-to-date 

 people are looking for is something that 

 is beautiful and at the same time un- 

 usual — something different from what 

 has heretofore been offered to them. All 

 tiorists ought to be able to give this 

 more thought, as the time is coming when 

 only the up-to-date store will have a 

 chance for existence and the designer 

 who has not formed the habit of creating 

 nt"v ideas will not have a place in the 

 flcA,er world. 



The public today demands something 

 in the way of design work that is more 

 unique, characteristic and original. We 

 mviy ask how we are to give the public 

 ttis. Only by solid, persistent thought 

 and sincere love for the work. The man 

 thr't can give this work his entire thought 

 wy always have something new to offer 

 hi'^ customers and then these customers 

 wi'l always look for that one man when 

 t^' y need anything. 



''here is a great deal of trade lost in 

 oiir business when we do not study our 

 c'lstomers. We should study them at 

 ^'"'f'T^y opportunity, and we should try to 

 ^1" more of their confidence and friend- 

 ^^'V in a business way, so that when they 

 ''; ^avor us with their patronage they 

 ^ill know that we are giving each order 

 our best thought. We should not try to 

 lorce our way too much on them, but 



should more or less lead them up to it 

 and have them know that we are really 

 offering them a good thing. 



Getting Suggestions from Customers. 



The general run of flower buyers today 

 are not in a position to know just exactly 

 what they want, unless they have given 

 the floral art some study, but designers 

 find that every customer has some natural 

 instinct for flowers. By getting some of 

 such a customer's ideas, though they may 



ment of natural flowers. They have not 

 the right idea as to the mechanical part 

 of our work, but they want to subject the 

 florists' art to the same rules as their 

 own. Still it is better, if possible, to 

 ' ' take in ' ' all their ideas, as by so doing 

 we sometimes catch something that is of 

 great value to us. 



There are various ways of looking at 

 our work and at the class of trade which 

 we have to handle, but let me repeat em- 

 phatically, in closing, that designers will 

 have to be more up-to-date and give a 

 great deal of time and thought to their 

 work, as the world is pushing on and the 

 flower business needs all the- resourceful, 

 successful men that can be obtained. 



H. NiCHUALS. 



SOMETHING DIFFERENT. 



Occasionally it is possible for the de- 

 signer to put into his work the little per- 

 sonal touch or the "something differ- 

 ent" that is likely to be pleasing. 



A fan-shaped, flat spray of Shastas, 



William Murphy. 

 (Superintendent Trades' Display at the CinciDoati ConveDtioD.) 



seem odd to us in some cases, and then 

 combining these ideas with our own, we 

 may find that the result is a good, well 

 planned design, which excels anything 

 that we could have devised without the 

 aid of the customer's suggestions. 



There are a great- many so-called art- 

 ists, painters of pictures, whom we have 

 to deal with as customers, and they come 

 to us with their ideas and try to influence 

 us into their way of thinking. But in a 

 great many cases, though they may be 

 good painters of pictures, they have no 

 true conception as to the proper arrange- 



backed by Adiantum hybridum, finished 

 at its base by an especially large single 

 flower in place of ribbon, and a bunch 

 of some five or six black pansies added, 

 with the card about halfway up one side, 

 may be said to strike the keynote of 

 sympathy as a funeral bouquet. Five 

 or six dozen Shastas were used, having 

 the smaller flowers at the flaring ends. 

 Branches of the bridal wreath (not in 

 flower) made a firm but airy foundation, 

 being almost covered vdth the fern. 



Black pansies are a possibility, both 

 the velvet and the dull. One must judge 



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