Smashing Magazine
Gorgeous Examples of Floral Typography
Floral typography is the technique that combines typography, calligraphy and lettering to create dynamic, “flourishing” designs. With the help of floral elements you can create very tempting and vivid artworks in which the typography seems to be shaped by plants and flowers. In this way you can convey your message in a very artistic way. In fact, various floral ornaments – which are the essential component of floral typography – can make the design stand out and help the artist to create inspiring, refreshing and thought-provoking pieces of art.
Below you’ll find a beautiful collection of floral typography and also some outstanding tutorials that will help you to master the technique or at least get some understanding of how this technique can be used. Please feel free to explore the further works of the artists presented below as well.
[Offtopic: by the way, did you know that there is a Smashing eBook Series? Book #1 is Professional Web Design, 242 pages for just $9,90.]
Floral Typography Examples
Christmas present – SiScott style
Chanel 4 25th Anniversary Book
Floral Typography Tutorials
Create a 3D Flowery Text Effect
Create an Ancient Typography with Dry Soil Texture and Floral Brushset in Photoshop
Create a Spectacular Grass Text Effect in Photoshop
Super Cool Frilly Bits Typography
Old School Type – Line Gradients
Dynamic Recessed Watercolor Typography in Photoshop
How to Create a Richly Ornate Typographic Illustration
Aquil Akhter is a web graphic designer and has been working in this field for 8 years. He also runs the blog webdesigncore.com, which focuses on free web resources and inspiration for designers and developers.
- 68 Comments
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May 23rd, 2009 11:25 amThanks a lot. Nice Collection.
- 3May 23rd, 2009 11:52 am
great list, it’s good that you guys keep the standards up for selecting stuff others will spend time viewing, thanks
- 4May 23rd, 2009 12:12 pm
Sigh, now I will spend another week in ps/cs4 forgetting about the world.
- 5May 23rd, 2009 12:14 pm
I think photos has gone slightly inside from right hand side? i am right? beautiful collection of typography
- 6May 23rd, 2009 12:48 pm
This isn’t new, its from the 1750s!
Hehe, joking aside, it really reminds me of “Rosemaling” (lit. ‘rose painting’):
From the all-mighty Wikipedia:
“a form of decorative flower painting that originated in the low-land areas of eastern Norway around 1750, when Baroque, Rengeny and Rococo, artistic styles of the upper class, were introduced into Norway’s rural culture.”
- 7May 23rd, 2009 1:01 pm
beautiful work! thanks for sharing.
- 8May 23rd, 2009 1:09 pm
Some nice stuff here, although a few do look very similar to one another and some are just not readable. I particularly like the ones with a 3D shadow effect.
- 9May 23rd, 2009 1:25 pm
W O N D E R F U L L !
- 10May 23rd, 2009 1:28 pm
fan-tas-tic!
- 11May 23rd, 2009 2:54 pm
looks like Sy Scott inspired a trend! he did many of the pieces in there, didn’t he? I know Summer Exhibition is his too.
- 12May 23rd, 2009 3:14 pm
Some are beautiful to behold, but fail completely at communicating a message since they are totally illegible.
- 13May 23rd, 2009 5:01 pm
Beautiful typography! Fav is the “black out” towards the top. Great collection of typography.
- 14May 23rd, 2009 5:07 pm
I must be the only one who was bored at the half way point viewing these. They all look the same, and don’t really excite, unless you love looking at the same floral patterns over and over.
- 15May 23rd, 2009 6:02 pm
I love Yulia Brodskaya’s work!
- 16May 23rd, 2009 6:18 pm
I think Tord Boontje started (reinvented) this technique before Sy Scott, then it was used in the demoscene and now everywhere. Amazing stuff, but most of them are really similar.
- 17May 23rd, 2009 10:47 pm
awesome!
- 18May 23rd, 2009 10:55 pm
Agree with nº14. This selection is coming 2 years too late.
Time to move on folks. - 19May 24th, 2009 1:16 am
Drop the floraluse guys, its a dead trend :)
Wireless and nature are still nicely done.
But floral,, nah - 20May 24th, 2009 3:18 am
Simply amazing! Wow!
- 21May 24th, 2009 4:18 am
wow – beautiful !
- 22May 24th, 2009 4:39 am
Amazing collection! Really love.. wel.. all of them I guess. Especially those by Yulia Brodskaya.
- 23May 24th, 2009 4:58 am
Very nice.
But many of this show the common problem of overdoing it. If you add to much to the text, it becomes unreadable, and the whole point is lost.
- 24May 24th, 2009 6:13 am
WoW!
no matter what media is behind all these.
it’s stunning. - 25May 24th, 2009 7:48 am
Thoroughly enjoyable post. Fantastic, inspiring collection! Kudos, Aquil Akhter!
- 26May 24th, 2009 7:50 am
amazing. so inspirational. now I wan t to go and make my own floral typo.
- 27May 24th, 2009 8:28 am
nice
- 28May 24th, 2009 10:41 am
amazing work
- 29May 24th, 2009 10:55 am
This reminds me a lot of the calligraphy examples in the Speedball handbook when buying pen points and supplies in my distant youth!
- 30May 24th, 2009 1:18 pm
I belive it is Leo Burnett not Leo Burnej. Nice list btw.
- 31May 24th, 2009 2:17 pm
WOW!!! Amazing work!!
- 32May 24th, 2009 2:40 pm
Great work…beautifull fonts
- 33May 24th, 2009 4:53 pm
So beautiful! An inspiration… I’m off to do some of my own design now. ;-)
- 34May 24th, 2009 5:49 pm
I quick skim through and the one that stands out for me is the twillery. Curled paper design.
- 35May 24th, 2009 8:02 pm
I am speechless……..
- 36May 24th, 2009 9:10 pm
I envy :c
- 37May 24th, 2009 11:20 pm
wow! breathtaking stuff!!!! amazing
- 38May 24th, 2009 11:57 pm
I feel the neo-hippies glee and drool over this. Oh look, there’s even a peace-sign thrown in there! Love and peace man, love and peace. B3
- 39May 25th, 2009 5:25 am
it´s Si Scott, not Sy Scott.
Look at the new stuff that Si Scott is creating, i think it is way better than his old stuff and he add images of animals also. - 40May 25th, 2009 6:44 am
One of the best posts ever.
- 41May 25th, 2009 10:55 am
so 2008
- 42May 25th, 2009 11:46 am
very beautiful and inspiring post, I wonder if there are other post on this subject and if there are tutorials to learn a bit…
- 43May 25th, 2009 2:29 pm
Inspiring
- 44May 25th, 2009 6:26 pm
These are beautiful, though I’m not sure about legibility! lol
- 45May 25th, 2009 9:46 pm
WOW! very beautiful… is there any tutorial for those?
- 46May 26th, 2009 5:15 am
Love this article. Great stuff Smashing!
- 47May 26th, 2009 6:04 am
Thank you for sharing.. Love the “A New Leaf”, and how it just stands with 3D..
- 48May 26th, 2009 11:10 am
Hey, it may be an old trend, but it sure deserves to live on! I love retro floral, art noveau influences et cetera. This post is nice to look at.
Yes, many of them are impossible to read… it obscures the “message” if the message is anything but ornament; somehow I think that many of these (and the less legible ones) are showing off illustration skill rather than trying to communicate a message – such as “type art.” Yes, we can see it’s art (although the type side is doubtful) without having to read the obscured words…
Overall, I enjoyed seeing this post, thanks Smashing!
- 49May 27th, 2009 12:32 am
Nice work
dis is one the best work i have c……. the word cant help me at this time………….
- 50May 27th, 2009 6:57 am
This was actually a beautiful collection of typography. They were all great examples of floral typography. Some of them have been circulating for a couple of years, but if they’ve survived that long, they have to have some merit. The one that amazed me the most was “Silk”. I agree with some of the above comments in how the message of some works was obscured by the artwork itself, and were, in fact, overly bearing, but beautiful in the least.
- 51May 27th, 2009 10:04 pm
Absolutely Jaw Dropping!
- 52May 28th, 2009 3:09 am
Loads of repeated entries!
- 53May 28th, 2009 10:55 am
Wow florals done right. And I normally HATE florals. DO NOT PUT OUT A TUTORIAL on this. Let the kiddies learn the hard way.
- 54May 28th, 2009 1:14 pm
Great for inspiration!
- 55May 29th, 2009 2:00 am
Yeah, pretty boring stuff mostly, and almost all of these look exactly the same.
Also, just to be pedantic, most of them aren’t floral either, they’re decorative, and none of them serve any purpose.
Form has to follow function. If you don’t know that, you shouldn’t be designing anything.
- 56May 29th, 2009 3:28 am
Nice work, but can I make a suggestion? I think you should link the illustrations to the artist’s website, not to any blog. And many of these illustrations are from Si Scott…
- 57May 30th, 2009 7:04 am
I’m in loooove. Fantastic list. I was going to suggest Yulia if you didn’t have her’s, but you do, which makes this list even more awesome. Thanks for sharing!
- 58May 30th, 2009 6:02 pm
I am a fan of julia brodskaya and her work is exquisite, i love the white materialshe uses in the magic lphoto.
- 59June 3rd, 2009 9:17 am
Buenísimo!
- 60June 11th, 2009 10:49 pm
What a marvelous list! It’s simply fascinating. Floral designs always come across as enigmatic and have a certain air of mystery and hypnotic beauty about them. I’m sure that some of these designs took a considerable amount of time and effort to be created. But the end-effect more than justifies the hardship! They are beautiful!
- 61June 16th, 2009 1:45 am
There all absolutly amazing, im a really big fan of floral patterns and at the moment im completing my gcse art work. I really like how youve done them all!
- 62July 4th, 2009 12:11 pm
Fascinating ! I’ve got floral typography on my website as well
- 63July 9th, 2009 1:26 am
Ida Aalen thanks for the Rosemaling info. Neat stuff :)
- 64July 20th, 2009 11:27 am
awesome work !!! I love typo!!
- 65August 12th, 2009 4:43 pm
I “hate” seeing these kind of post. Why god didnt give me 25% of these people creativity :)
good post!
- 66August 12th, 2009 10:55 pm
really awesome one , excellence creativity, if i can do it , great work of creativity.
- 67February 26th, 2010 5:02 am
Hi,
Can anybody give me above Typography Tutorials.
Plzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Ill be very much thankful to all.
Thanks
- 68May 27th, 2010 1:20 am
Fantastic! I wish if there were any tutorials how did they create floral typography…
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Great list of typography. just awesome.