Founded by Freddie Garland, Freddie’s Flowers is a subscription service which delivers fresh flowers to customers across the UK. For £24 per week, customers receive a new box of seasonal blooms through the post, along with advice on how to present and care for them.
For On Brief, we commissioned photographer Charlotte May to create a set of images and GIFs that would showcase the brand’s products in a new light and introduce Freddie’s Flowers to a new audience. As most of its content is produced in-house, On Brief provided the chance for the brand to experiment, trying out bolder colours and a new aesthetic.
“We wanted to get a fresh perspective, and ideally from someone that has a set of skills that we don’t,” explains Oliver Delevingne, who looks after marketing and advertising at Freddie’s Flowers. “We’ve produced everything in house and on a tight budget from the start, and with a set of quite tight brand guidelines. As we’re a flower company, we lean hugely on photography to best represent the product, so were keen to stay within the medium. When we saw Charlotte’s portfolio, we were instantly drawn to the bold colours, but also the movement she brings, which we’d not used with before.”
May – a still life photographer who is based in Kent – worked with friend and stylist River Gibbs to create a shoot featuring a range of spring flowers.
After putting together some mood boards and colour references, May created a test shoot using products provided by Freddie’s. Once the concept was approved, she worked with a carpenter to create a set while Gibbs sourced ceramic vases from independent suppliers.
Photographs were shot at May’s studio space in Gravesend (you can see the process in our making of film below) before being edited and sent to Delevingne and the team. The shoot was a process of trial and error, with Gibbs and May trying out different combinations of props and flowers. Alongside a selection of still lifes, May also created a time lapse shot of a peony unfurling – highlighting the fact that Freddie’s Flowers’ customers receive flowers in bud form, meaning they last longer than bouquets which arrive in full bloom.
Delevingne says the process allowed Freddie’s Flowers to view its product from a different perspective. “When you’re so close to a brand it can be easy to be blinkered to new ideas,” he adds.
Working with an external creative also pushed the brand outside of its comfort zone. Freddie’s Flowers has spent the past year experimenting with paid advertising, using static images of flower arrangements and unboxing videos, but On Brief was the first time it had given its product over to an external creative to shoot and the resulting images have a very different look and feel from ads created in-house.
“The Freddie’s Flowers aesthetic is simple [and] stripped down with a handmade feel. Freddie started in his parents’ garden packing boxes, and still chooses every bunch that lands on a customer’s doorstep, so it’s important that everything looks and feels as if Freddie made it himself.”
Vase provided by Anthropologie
“Charlotte’s work is really product-focussed which meant we knew she’d make the flowers look their best, but she works with block colours and a palette far removed from our garden shed vibe,“ adds Delevingne.
While the aim of the shoot was to create something fresh, Freddie’s Flowers wanted to ensure that assets would reflect the brand’s aesthetic, so once the images had been created, social media production company The Source was brought in to add some of Freddie’s branding to Charlotte’s vibrant photographs and GIFs and optimise assets for Facebook and Instagram.
“In everything we do we strive to keep Freddie front and centre but instantly with Charlotte’s work it’s clear it’s not him… However, the flowers themselves always looked beautiful and we were seeing techniques we’d never have achieved or considered ourselves, so we were keen to see what we could do to the images to make them an extension of the brand, rather than an outlier,” explains Delevingne.
“The post-production processing to make them Facebook-ready did a lot to put the Freddie’s ‘touch’ back on the images, and we’re thrilled with how it turned out. We had these individually striking images and the flowers looked beautiful, but we needed to bring back some of the Freddie’s style…. We managed this through movement, text and a few FF brand assets, and ended up with something relatable to us: our flowers, but in a new, unique and really beautiful way,” he adds.
Raawii ‘Strom’ vase provided by WA Green
Raawii ‘Strom’ vase provided by WA Green
Beyond giving the brand a new set of assets, Delevingne says the project has given Freddie’s Flowers the confidence to experiment with how its products are presented. The resulting assets will be shared via Facebook and Instagram Stories ads and will be used to target potential new customers on the platform.
“It can be quite daunting, letting go of the control of the look, but ultimately it was a really refreshing and eye-opening experience…. We’ve learned to be more open with new styles, realising that it’s possible to create stunning new images while maintaining our brand identity.“
On Brief is part of Inspire, a partnership between Creative Review, Facebook and Instagram to showcase outstanding creative work on both platforms. Creatives are paid for their involvement in On Brief. For more content from Inspire, see creativereview.co.uk/inspire. Lead image (shown top): Ceramics (l-r) provided by WA Green, Arjan Van Dal, Los Objetos Decorativos, Iona Aitchison and Arjan Van Dal.
freddiesflowers.com; charlottemay.co.uk, riverjadegibbs.com; thesource.socialThe post On Brief: Charlotte May x Freddie’s Flowers appeared first on Creative Review.
