Flower Color Guide. To look at the floral world with poetry

Flower Color Guide, published by Phaidon, is an extraordinary sample case realized by the floral designers Darroch & Michael Putnam.

Interior designer one, photographer the other they observe the color of flowers with love and professionalism. After appearing in Vogue they turned a passion into a boutique studio in New York where they make floral installations that leave you breathless.

With a refined look they walk every morning in the flower market on the 28th West in New York. Their secret? Intuition and color because for the Putnams it is the color of the flowers that guides us.

Ambassadors of the seasonality of flowers, with this book they tried to spread the knowledge of the floral world because, as in the kitchen, more you know the ingredients you use more you know how to combine them and the result will be surprising.

Their floral design mainly revolves around the importance of the chromatic scale but “what is the best way to use this book?”

Flower Color Guide: the book.

In this fantastic book you will find 400 flowers organized by color because people often choose instinctively, attracted by the color of flowers. From the white to the “almost” black, the flowers were photographed dedicating a page to each one.

Each flower is accompanied by a brief but rich caption in which it is indicated:

• the name
• the botanical name
• the variety, the color or the description
• the period of greatest availability
• the role in the composition

In this regard Michael and Darroch Putnam identify main flowers, which represent the fulcrum of the composition, flowers interesting for their texture, which bring complexity, flowers important for shape and posture, which give depth and movement and flowers that help to create the structure of flower arrangement.

After all, an appendix provides valuable information on how to take care of flowers without being expert florists, on the necessary material and on how to prepare the containers in which the flowers bought will be stored.

What I appreciated most about the book, besides the absolute clarity of the words used and the aesthetically flawless organization, is the theme of sustainability. The seasonality of the flower and its purchase, the composting of the advanced organic material, the redistribution of the no longer useful compositions are some of the indications of the duo Putnam & Putnam.

Can a book be more beautiful than that?

The answer is yes. At the end of the catalog, small detachable cards with the 400 selected flower await you to be matched and dreamed of in the floral arrangements you intend to create for your home or for the special occasion of the moment.

Special is also the Sunday table decorated with your favorite flowers.

Flower Color Guide is the chromatic guide to the floral world that we have been waiting for a long time.