If you've competed in floral design competitions you know how much planning and work can go into your entry, from the moment you first read the schedule right up to when your work is complete. Working to a given theme can really stretch your creative abilities as you try to find a unique perspective from which to interpret it.
You may invest many hours designing your items and planning how you will craft them. If you’re designing for a competition, then you’re aiming to gain points by working to the marking criteria, which is something that changes from one competition to another. Like playing a game, you understand the rules and play to them to win.
When approaching a floral design competition, do you pay as much attention to the marking criteria as to design and interpretation? If you do, you are on the right path, because attending to the interpretive and design requirements of the competition schedule without fully comprehending how the competition is being marked, would be like playing a game of soccer without being sure which goal posts are yours.
When you know exactly how an item is being marked, you can determine how to allocate your creative and physical energies in proportion to how much weight they have in the marking criteria.
It's sometimes easy to focus excessively on designing, or on interpreting, and getting lost in both, at the expense of addressing the brief. Understanding the marking criteria comes down to a set of practices and skills that can be learnt, and also taught.
If you want to get the best results for your effort in floral design competitions, please consider our new program, Designing to Win. I have written it for all floral creatives - floral artists, flower arrangers, floral designers and florists - from novice to veteran, who want to have more success in competition and personal satisfaction in designing. I will take you through the process that I use to approach competition schedules and I think you will find many ways to use your learnings to attain more success in competition too.
To find out more, please visit https://flowerthinking.com/designing-to-win.