•i;i;ST k), 



1909. 



The Weekly Florists^ Review. 



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THE RETAIL 



FLORIST 



I 



I 



RIGINALITY IN DESIGNING. 



a 



I'V 



ill' 

 tli 



Dreamt of Artistic Beauty. 



,, best designers find that their best 

 has been accomplished by means of 

 i.-;tl experience combined with quick 

 ^lit :dong different lines. The flower 

 icss is like a great many other sorts 

 usiness in tliis way, that there have 

 rules and regulations created in 

 years wliich nearly all designers 

 tollowed, but we find that ideas of 

 ■w. artistic nature have always been 

 ..■<l by means of a quick act of the 

 filiation or a so-called dream. By 

 1 mean that the man who has always 

 cn'iliiit'd himself to one special way of 

 Ai>'-<>'j: this or that design, and has no 

 iiaiiiriil love of beauty and naturalness, 

 (■a II not see these so-called dreams of ar- 

 t!-i'i' beauty. 



1 have always found that a designer 

 iiiii-t not only be able to study his work 

 ,|o-ily, hut must also have an extraor- 

 .imarv taste for everything beautiful or 

 artistic, wherever he finds it, whether in 

 tli.' flriwor business or elsewhere. In each 

 tiiiiii,r of beauty he may find something 

 iliai will be helpful to him in the artistic 



line 



The Demand for New Ideas. 



i lii're must be a natural instinct in a 

 'I'^iyiicr in order to win success, and 

 iliai iiistiiu't must be taken care of and 

 1 rained like a child. Thus, as the do- 

 siuiHT 's experieiu'O increases he may see 

 I" u (Iroains of beauty. I think there 

 .^li'MiM be more of a desire to create new 

 ■l''-iK'>s and artistic features in all kinds 

 "I work, as llie times are changing fast 

 :i'"l we find that what the up-to-date 

 f" 'I'le are looking for is something that 

 i I'l'.-iutiful and at the same time un- 

 '" 111 — something different from what 

 I - heretofore been offered to them. All 

 I' ists ought to be able to give this 

 " "■ thought, as the time is coming when 

 • '» the uptn-clate store will have a 



■ine for existence and the designer 

 bas not formed the habit of creating 

 i<leas will not have a place in the 

 ' !■ world. 



h'' i)ublic today demands something 

 IK' way of design work that is more 



I lie. characteristic and original. We 



ask how we arc to give the public 



Only by solid, persistent thought 



sincere love for the work. The man 



'•."in give this work his entire thought 



always have something new to offer 

 ■ustomers and then these customers 

 always look for that one man when 



o 1 aiiytliing. 



I I ere is a great deal of trade lost in 

 business when wo do not study our 



' "mers. We should study them at 

 y opportunity, and we should try to 

 more of their confidence and friend- 

 in a business way, so that when they 

 ^avor us with their patronage they 

 know that we are giving each order 

 J^cst thought. We should not try to 

 ' our way too much on them, but 



should more or less lead them up to it 

 and have them know tliat we are really 

 offering them a good thing. 



Getting Suggestions from Customers. 



The general run of flov\er buyers today 

 are not in a position to know just exactly 

 what they want, unless tliey have given 

 the floral art some study, but designers 

 find that every customer has some natural 

 instinct for flowers. Jiy getting some of 

 such a customer's ideas, though they may 



iiu'iit of natural flowers. They have not 

 the right idea as to the mechanical part 

 of our work, but tlie\- want to subject the 

 llciri.sts' art to the s;mie rules as their 

 own. Still it is better, if possible, to 

 "take in" all their ideas. ;is 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 i.s pushing on and the 

 tlower business needs all the resourceful, 

 successful men that can be obtained. 



H. XlCIIUALS. 



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' Disphiy at the CMiciiiiiati Uoiiveiitioii. ) 



seem odd to us in sonic 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 cotdd have devised without the 

 aid of the cu.stomer 's siif;gestions. 



There are a great- many so called art- 

 ists, painters of pictures, whom wo have 

 to deal with as customers, and they come 

 to us with their ideas and try to influence 

 us into their way of thinkiufr. But in a 

 great many cases, though they may be 

 good painters of piefiircs, they have no 

 true conception as to the proper arrange- 



batked by Adinntum 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. Kve 

 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 with the fern. 



Black pansies are a possibility, both 

 the velvet and the dull. One must .judge 



