Wednesday, August 27, 2014

FLOWER ARRANGER

Florists enjoy one of the only design jobs that don't have to come wrapped up with a college          degree or additional training. Floral designers use their talents to create beautiful flower                 arrangements and help their customers select gifts. Of course, being a florist isn't always a bed of   roses. You'll need to lift heavy containers when sorting stock and avoid cutting yourself on the many sharp tools of the trade , all while serving your customers. Customer  service is a big part of the floral industry; floral designers are present for some of   the most important moments in people's    lives. In addition to creative flair, you'll need to have a gift for empathizing with others, whether    they are a bubbly bride, nervous date or grieving family member. Florists employed by flower       shops typically earn slightly less than those working at grocery stores or floral outlets. Additional    training, location and employer can all have an impact on the hourly wages earned by florists.

                      Floral designers in seasonal, entry-level positions do not require experience or formaleducation. Employers looking to hire a full-time florist will usually look for high school graduates with talent and enthusiasm for working with flowers . Want to improve your design abilities to prepare for a job in floral design? Taking high school art classes or community center art programs can help with the basics. Private floral schools and trade schools are available to floral designers    who want to pursue certification. Career growth is limited; most florists work for several years and either advance onto  supervisor positions or open their own shop. Floral designers who are interested in opening    their own shop often seek certification from trade schools, and classes in business administration may also be useful. Independent florists should also consider training in event         management; more floral shops are offering event coordination services to compete with the lower  prices offered by floral wholesale businesses.

                        Job opportunities should still be good for new floral designers as current florists pursue other professions. Grocery stores, internet florists and other discount florists are becoming more popular and are likely to have more available positions. A florist works with flowers, plants and hand crafted flower arrangements, selling them to the general public or attending functions to create flower displays. As a florist, you will be working with the general public, so any retail experience, or customer services experience would be advantageous. You may be able to help out at an independent florist to gain valuable work experience. Florists and garden centre’s are generally small self contained businesses, and approaching these directly is your best route to finding employment. Commercial flower delivery services such as Interflora are not actually florists in themselves but in fact a delivery network putting individual florists in touch with the general public. As an independent florist, joining such a network can be highly rewarding.

Since time immemorial, flowers have held a special place in human society. Different flowers are used to celebrate special events all over the world such as weddings, funerals, births and festivals. Some flowers are historically imbued with a particular meaning, while others are valued purely for their fragrant or decorative properties. In the UK, over 6,000 florist businesses employ nearly 29,000 people. The value of this to the UK economy is estimated at £1.5 billion and statistics show that over half of this is comprised of people buying flowers for themselves . The huge range of flowers and plants available, each with its own particular set of requirements and properties, means that a fully qualified florist is a highly trained professional. The day to day duties of a florist would include the following: selecting flowers according to freshness, seasonality and appearance for displays and decoration, creating original bouquets and bespoke bouquets for individual customers, helping customers choose the right flowers for a particular occasion, advising customers on plant and flower after-care, taking flower orders by telephone and arranging delivery, attending special functions and events to create flower displays and basic administrative tasks such as book keeping.

                     To succeed as a florist, the following personal skills and attributes would give you an advantage: a genuine love of flowers and a desire to work with them, a keen eye for design, colour matching and style, some knowledge of plant care, good interpersonal skills, good at dealing with the public, good time management skills; you may be your own boss one day, the ability to work quickly and efficiently while under pressure; florists can be busy places. Florists usually work from a retail store where they can design, prepare and then sell their creations directly to the public. Taking orders by the telephone or Internet and sending deliveries of flowers is also common. Many florists opt to work from a stall where they can take advantage of a busy passing trade. Additionally florists may travel to special events such as funerals, marriages, christenings or large corporate events to create flower arrangements and displays.

                    The floral industry involves flower production, distribution, design, retailing, operations, marketing, publishing, importing, research, teaching, greenhouse design and engineering, climate control systems engineering, soil analysis, sales and pest management. Plus, employers need people skilled in office management, human resources, book keeping, accounting and computer systems. In today’s floriculture job market, there is a growing demand for trained professionals who have strong business skills as well as horticultural knowledge. Experienced florists often go on to manage a retail outlet or even to start up their own business. There are professional qualifications aimed specifically at florists looking to expand their skills, and these are covered in the qualifications section. There are a great number of qualifications available to prospective florists at school leaver, college, university level and beyond. To begin work as a florist you don't need an official qualification; however, it takes between 5 - 7 years to become a truly professional florist due to the depth and breadth of knowledge required .

There are three types of florists which are Ikebana, English Garden and High Style. Ikebana is a style of floral design that originated in Japan. Best known for its simplicity of line and form, Ikebana is a design style primarily practiced for personal enjoyment. It has three parts of alignment heaven, man and earth. English Garden style is traditionally an English form of floral design. Stems are placed in a radial fashion and feature abundant use of seasonal flowers and foliages. These designs are often done as low, tufted mounds, or taller vase arrangements that are all-sided (360°), and incorporate garden flowers like roses, delphinium and peonies. Many florists that follow this design style do not use Baby's Breath, Carnations and Leather leaf. High Style floristry involves contemporary, linear designs that highlight unique forms of both individual floral materials and of the designs themselves. Arrangements generally feature negative space and incorporate asymmetric placement of materials. The style stands in direct contrast to traditional radial arrangements such as English Garden. High Style designs often incorporate unique, exotic or tropical flowers such as such as Bird of Paradise and Protea but may also employ more common blossoms.

                  Typically, a florist will organize flowers by season and holiday. Flowers have various different meanings in different cultures. The holidays and events for which flowers are used vary. Poppies are used to remember fallen soldiers only in Great Britain and the Commonwealth countries. The cultural meaning of colors also strongly affects the choice and use of flowers. People often prefer flowers that are associated with their ethnic group or country, and various colors may have special meanings of luck or death or love or other basic human traits. To some, a flower such as a red rose might mean love, but to others it might be considered indecent or simply puzzling. The vastly divergent views on the color white can also lead to major flower issues. While white represents death in many Asian cultures, it is simultaneously a symbol of purity and innocence in many European and American cultures. Such differences can lead to difficult issues when a bouquet of white lilies, for example, is delivered .

                   There are usually three major sources of fresh flowers for retail florists: local growers, local wholesalers and flower auctions. The majority of these are supplied by specialist horticultural and cut flower suppliers. Internationally there are hundreds of wholesale flower markets and auctions, the largest of which is located in Aalsmeer, Holland: the Bloemenveiling Aalsmeer. Other major markets include the fledgling Dubai Flower Centre and the Ota Flower Market in Tokyo, Japan. Within North America, Miami is considered to be the main distribution point for imported fresh flowers. Many local wholesalers purchase fresh flower stock from importers in Miami to resale to local florist in their areas. Wholesale flower districts are present in many North American cities such as New York, Boston, and Los Angeles,San Francisco and Carlsbad, California. Flower auctions are run using the Dutch clock system and are mainly located in Canada: Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.

In my perspective, I look flower arrangers as a creative job. The variety of different events and being creative with flowers. Each day is different so there's never a dull moment. Being one's own boss too is definitely a plus. Besides that, dismantling arrangements at the end of an event - clearing it all up! That's hard work. To those whom want to involve in this career it is a lot more physical than people imagine and not as 'girly' as some might think. For example we carry heavy trees in and out of venues as well as concrete blocks and huge urns of flowers in order to get the look we need. People who want to be a florist should try to get as much practical experience as possible and offer your services to other florists to get a taste of different styles. It's never too early to begin planning a career in an industry where your work helps make the world prettier place while enriching the lives of millions of people every year. Whether your interests lean toward the creative arts or technology and science, you’re sure to find a satisfying and rewarding profession in floriculture. That’s because the floral industry attracts both the artist and the scientist. This diverse field offers you a wide variety of challenging and profitable career choices.

                 There is also scholarship to those who want to become a professional florist. Koehler  & Dramm’s Tony Sciortino Scholarship  is to promote and encourage those who desire to become a professional florist in beginning or continuing their education. Its purpose is to help those starting out and those seeking a higher elevation in the floral industry and provide them with a way to learn and gain necessary experience that will help them pursue their career in the floral industry. The following are some of the scholarships offered for florist: Julio and Sarah Armellinni Scholarship. The Julio and Sarah Armellini Scholarship is intended for sophomore, junior, or senior students with a career interest in the marketing or distribution of floral products. Next, Ball Horticultural Company Scholarship. Ball brings the beginnings of color, foliage, fruit and form to professional growers around the world for the retail and landscape markets. The Ball Horticultural Company Scholarship is intended for junior or senior students pursuing a career in commercial floriculture .

                  The World Wide Web has had a significant impact on traditional florists, with the North American market experiencing a more than 20% decline in traditional, independently owned flower shops since 1998. Purchases from shops are slowly being overtaken by online flower delivery ordering and floral wire services. However, some independent florists have taken to having their own online store, where customers can order online as well as on the telephone. Floral Wire Services play an intermediary role in the flower business, gathering orders on behalf of local retailers and then sending these via proprietary computer systems to florists for fulfillment. The largest floral software providers 1-800-Flowers, FTD, and Teleflora both gather orders and provide access to member florists from non-technology order gatherers such as Pro Flowers via their computer systems. Floral Wire Services take a percentage of customers order value for orders provided through their websites and additional fees for the transmission of orders to local florists
Flowers were considered fashionable in this after queen Victoria named period. Although in this era flowers were poorly proportioned, large mass flowers were placed tightly into a container to create compact arrangements, asymmetrical and massed tightly. There was no definite style, but many different flowers and colours almost made the arrangement look unplanned. The tuzzy-muzzy bouquets were still serving to eliminate odors. At the end of this period attempts were made to set up rules for a proper arranging of flowers, which is when it became an artful skill or profession. The Italian Renaissance helped to give an extra spark to the art of flower arranging in Europe. It was during this time period that a wide variety of arrangement styles began to develop. By the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, flower arrangements were commonplace and a wide variety of materials were used to make containers, including marble, heavy Venetian glass, and bronze. Flower arrangements made during this time introduced a whole new element - the usage of tropical fruits. These arrangements also focused on creating colour contrast. Some of the popular flowers included the Lilium Candidum (or Madonna Lily, used as a symbol for fertility and chastity), narcissus, pinks, iris, jasmine, pansies, French marigolds, cornflowers, and rosemary .

                  The designs were formal and symmetrical and often tightly arranged with a variety of flowers. There were influences of oriental design because of active trading. This made the design symmetrical triangle-shaped. At the end of the period the designs became more informal due to the fact that the fragrance of the flowers became more important. The fragrance of the flowers were said to rid the air of diseases. Because of this belief they created an arrangement called “nosegay”’, which was a handheld arrangement to carry sweet scents. Nosegays also helped mask the odors of society where bathing was often believed to be unhealthy. The bouquets were called tussie-mussies, often pronounced tuzzy-muzzy. Feminine appeal became a major characteristic of the floral design. This was the French baroque period. French rococo this time was more formal. These floral arrangements were asymmetrical using the C-crescent or the S-shape. In the empire period they used simple lines in triangle shape and strong colour contrast. The typical empire design would be arranged in an urn containing an abundance of large richly coloured flowers . Unlike the baroque period the arrangements were more compact and proportioned. The major characteristic of this period was the variety of flowers within the bouquet .





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