asheville orchid festival postcard
Graphic Design for a Flower Festival
I’ve had the pleasure of working with the Western North Carolina Orchid Society for many years now, and it’s always fun to design the promotional materials they use every year for the Asheville Orchid Festival. Nature generally, and flowers in particular, are my favorite subject matter, so my partnership with the WNCOS is a match made in heaven.
Designing for a Theme
Each year, the orchid society comes to me with their theme for the year already decided, which gives me a starting point for the design. Sometimes they can give me an idea of what their display will look like, which helps inform my style choices, but sometimes that hasn’t been decided yet. Either way, the process starts with original art, so I usually head straight for Procreate on my iPad to start sketching out ideas. In this case, their theme was “Orchid Express.”
Turning Inspiration into Reality
In this case, finding inspiration wasn’t at all difficult - there had to be a steam train, and I may or may not have googled “Orient Express” once or twice. It was such fun to research steam trains from the golden era of travel. The font choice followed that easily - something that was easy to read, but also looked as though it could have come from the period. (Spoiler: it didn’t! The font is Desdemona, by the way, for my fellow font geeks out there.)
I was thinking the main color scheme would be green and purple, and I wanted the flowers to be a sort of spray cascading out along the abstract “train track” divider, so I chose dendrobium orchids, because they grow that way in real life. I have a hard time painting nature in an unnatural form or color palette, especially in this case, for people who really know their orchids.
I’m pleased with the way this art and design project turned out, but the important thing is that the society loved it. If the client is happy, then I’m happy. Their story went out into the world, and they had a great turnout for the event. Mission accomplished.