starbright – Page 6 – Blooming Thoughts

Color Profile : Red

Ever wonder where flowers got their “meanings”?

Color psychologist don’t. And they have loads of studies backing up their theories. The general model of color psychology relies on six basic principles:

Over at Starbright Floral Design, we get to work with lots of colors everyday and all of us have our favorites. But why are they our favorites and what does that say? Up this week :

Red

Red is for Romance — Roses, amaryllis, orchids, hypericomb berries and autumn leaves

Did you know that red is the most common color used on national flags? Or that red is generally considered to be a good luck color in Asia? Or that red is the traditional color for 40th anniversaries?

What makes red so special?

Red is the color of extremes. It is a warm color with a lot of energy. It is the second most visible color to the eye, though about 8% of the male population cannot see it. Many people think of red as the color of action. To the ancient Greeks, red was the color of super-human heroism. And while we’re certainly not going to knock that association, it’s also worth mentioning the color’s current day connection – romance.

For Someone Special

“As it happens, red is an exquisite ambassador for love, and in more ways than people may realize. Not only is red the color of the blood that flushes the face and swells the pelvis and that one swears one would spill to save the beloved’s prized hide. It is also a fine metaphoric mate for the complexity and contrariness of love. In red we see shades of life, death, fury, shame, courage, anguish, pride and the occasional overuse of exfoliants designed to combat signs of aging. Red is bright and bold and has a big lipsticked mouth, through which it happily speaks out of all sides at once. Yoo-hoo! yodels red, come close, have a look. Stop right there, red amends, one false move and you’re dead.”

From NYTimes.com

If you’re not convinced, check out this article, “Red Alert: Science Discovers The Color of Sexual Attraction” from Psychology Today. It’s action packed with useful information.

For the Home

Decorating a home means balancing style and utility, favorite colors and what’s available, space and lack of space. Red is one of the top two most popular colors, but many people stay far away from it when picking their color schemes. Contrary to popular belief, red is a great color to bring into your space. Whether your looking to add feelings of warmth and comfort or richness and luxury, red is a favorite of feng shui experts and interior designers alike. Known for increasing appetites, red details are especially great for the kitchen and dinning areas as well as the bedroom. But be careful to use reds in moderation – too much red can be over stimulating and cause restlessness.

For Body, Mind, and Soul

Dealing with life can require an extra kick sometimes. If you’re not a big coffee drinker, consider adding a bit of red to the area. Physically, red can cause a bump to your blood pressure, speed up your heart rate, and motivate you to action. Red flowers can also increase the sensitivity of your senses and lend feelings of boldness, courage and action.

If red is your favorite color, you might be a strong person who craves independence. And if you have a particular aversion to the color red, it could mean you tend to be impulsive and could use some calming influences. Mixing reds with teals, blues, and greens (as in the arrangement above from StarbrightNYC) can balance strong red shades enough for even the strongest red-dissenter.

Looking for flowers in New York City? Visit our Event Gallery for inspiration. Or see our daily selection at Starbrightnyc.com.

A fresh bouquet by Barbara

Gentiana

Quick Notes /

Gentiana is a genus of flowering plants with about 400 species! That’s a large species group! These blooms are most notable for the trumpet like shape and vivid coloring. While they are often brilliant blue in coloring, they can also be white, yellow, red. The main blooming season is Spring, but these flowers can rebloom throughout late Summer.

General Notes /

Gentiana are most at home in alpine environments. These delicate flowers can be shy about blooming outside of their natural habitat. The stiff stems have oppositely arranged leaves, sometimes is a basal rosette. The flowers grow in groups, spaced along the stems. Gentiana is polymorphic and can bear blooms of multiple colors.

Flower History /

The name, Gentiana, is attributed to the Gentius, an Illyrian king who is attributed with having discovered the medicinal uses of the plant back around 500-1000AD. The plant’s medicinal uses vary from treatments for upset stomachs to easing depression – but don’t forget – the Gentiana in you floral arrangements are not for making teas, poultices, or any other edible concoction!

Insider Information /

Gentiana yields the most bitter chemical substance on Earth.
In Southeast Asia, there is a variety of gentiana that can grow up to 100 feet tall!

Looking for flowers in New York City? Visit our Event Gallery for inspiration. Or see our daily selection at Starbrightnyc.com.

Celebrating 20 years!

Nestled in the heart of New York’s historic flower district, Starbright Floral Design has been delivering arrangements of the highest quality for over twenty years. We celebrated our anniversary last week in the shop with lots of arrangements, delicious food from Niles NYC, and birthday cakes for the shop and for “the man that makes it happen”, Costas!

Celebrating with food and flowers at Starbright Floral Design – Thanks Niles NYC! It was delicious!

Cake time! — Nic and Julia set out birthday cakes for the celebration!

Blowing out the candles — Team Starbright blowing out the birthday candles!

And while the team took a break to chow down on some delicious treats and talked shop. Starbright has a unique studio layout – over 75% of the floor space in the suite is devoted to designing and producing floral arrangements. If you enter the shop and look to the left, all the way down in the back of the shop you’ll see a row of desks – this is where the office staff work, manning the phones. One of the first things you’ll notice is that there isn’t a wall or door or glass window or blind or anything between these two sides of the business. The design and shop staff and the business operations personnel share one space, and one mission – that makes it real easy to come together and let loose, like a big family.

Starbright is known for the flowers, but if you ask anyone who works here what makes the joint special they’ll tell you “it’s the people!” We’re going to break the fourth wall here – we’ve worked with a long list of multi-national businesses and local standouts. Starbright Floral Design is unique on that list because of the incredibly diverse range of experiences, backgrounds and motivations that come together to compose the team. Design isn’t just about making something look nice, or just about pleasing a client on-time and on-budget – design is what happens when someone considers their life story, and funnels those experiences into your life story. Below is a gallery of some of the faces you’ll see when you visit our 28th St location:

“Starbright is the perfect Manhattan florist because, like the city itself, its staff is made up of all kinds. Everyone here works hard, likes to laugh, and brings their own area of expertise to the table. We can learn from each other as well as challenge each other, and altogether have staff hail from all five boroughs, as well as boasting international members. There is no other florist more cosmopolitan than Starbright, and hence none better to service and represent the great city of New York!”

– Barbara

Wondering who’s been at the Starbright Floral Design table longest? Eddie has been with Starbright for well over a decade! With a quick wit and a ready laugh, Eddy brings life to arrangements through color and texture. It’s been a pretty awesome year here for Eddie – the Society of American Florists featured Starbright Floral Design and published a photo of this guy on the cover!

Ana - Queen of the roses! — Ana – Queen of the roses!

Ana has also been with Starbright for over a decade! And even though her favorite flower is the anthurium and tropical arrangements are her jam, Ana is also our “queen of roses”. Whether it’s one dozen or three, she knows exactly what to do with those long stems.

Happy 20 anniversary Nic and Family!

I thank God for letting me know you guys for so many years and giving me this opportunity to be part of your team – which is like a family. After many years in the flower business, I am still learning new things day after day. From the bottom of my heart, I wish Starbright many more years to continue growing. Long live Starbright.

With love” –

Ana

And this is Barbara! With over a decade of floral design experience and about six years in this shop, Barbara is another Starbright veteran and a huge part of the team.

Have you attended a party with Starbright flowers recently? Or a wedding? If you have, there’s a big chance Barbara is responsible for the pieces. Barbara’s style can be described as lush – whether it’s modern or traditional, somehow Barbara’s pieces seem richer than the budget would lead you to expect.

Starbright212

But don’t be fooled. This girl’s got edge – check out her great tattoo – but also a huge heart. As a mother of three, Barbara is an expert listener. I don’t know how she does it, but somehow, Barbara always knows just what people are hoping for.

Sokratis recently joined us from Greece, where he and his wife both worked as floral designers. Creating natural looking forms from flowers – Sokratis brings a technique and style all his own. He is known around the shop for his daring composition, utilizing flora in atypical fashions to achieve top flight results.

Viktor? Where’d you go? Just kidding. Viktor is a little camera shy himself, but that’s not at all the case for the arrangements that he makes! I snapped a shot of the design table where the elusive Viktor can sometimes be seen. Stop in the shop someday and wave to the left-most design table. Hi, Viktor!

Byron is one of the most recent designers on the table. His pieces tend to have a touch of modernity, simplicity and elegance

“Working for a flower company like Starbright is amazing. It has been a great opportunity to grow as a floral designer and to learn from the best coworkers ever. Working as team, we’re making the Star brighter than ever!

I design floral arrangements with a passion for our client’s satisfaction. It is a pleasure to know that my work might cheer up a person’s day or bring a smile to their face. I am very grateful to have such an opportunity. Today I would like to congratulate the man who came up with the idea to start this company, twenty year ago a Star came over New York City to make it Bright.

After all these years Starbright is still shining, thanks to the man, friend, coworker and owner who never sleeps Nic Faitos.

God Bless this company because we are Starbright Floral Design. Cheers!!!!”

-Byron

So designers design the arrangements and build them out, and office personnel handle orders and paperwork. Doing everything else – literally – falls on the broad shoulders of the Starbright Shop Team. These cats are among the most level-headed in the office – they have to be, since they’re the glue that binds the place!

Joe with balloons — Joe, on the left, hangs out with Nic and Stephen

Prepping flowers at the table — Prepping flowers at the tabl

And from the office! These ladies and gentlemen are on the phones 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. One Account Manager told me that the Starbright “management shows a strong dedication to a friendly, pleasant environment with an almost family interaction with the staff. When you have a smile on your face and happy to be at work, customer service is simple.”

Still with us? Great! Way down here, tucked away at the bottom of the blog post, we’ve put a special gift for our supporters – Nic got together with our camera team last week to talk to us about where Starbright came from, and how it got to where it is today.

Looking for flowers in New York City? Visit our Event Gallery for inspiration. Or see our daily selection at Starbrightnyc.com.

Flower File : Crocosmia

Quick Notes /

A favorite flower in August, crocosmia is a common flower in the grasslands of southern and eastern Africa. In the United Staes, these lovely blooms are often referred to as Coppertips or Falling Stars. They grow as evergreens or as deciduous perennials and come back year after year to please the senses with their trumpet-like shapes and bright colors.

The genus name is derived from the Greek words krokos, meaning “saffron”, and osme, meaning “odor” – from the fact that dried leaves of these plants emit a strong smell like that of saffron (a spice derived from Crocus – another genus belonging to the Iridaceae) – when immersed in hot water.

Visual Notes /

Crocosmia is distinctive for its colorful inflorescence in shocking orange and reds. The stems branch out and display a number of blooms along one side of each stem near the end and nod and sway gracefully above your flower beds or your late summer arrangements. The Crocosmia leaves are long, pointy and have parallel veins along their length. They grow in clumps in bloom in a spectacular

Insider Information /

Crocosmia are great for attracting hummingbirds to your garden.

Looking for flowers in New York City? Visit our Event Gallery for inspiration. Or see our daily selection at Starbrightnyc.com.

Color Profile : Purple

Ever wonder where flowers got their “meanings”?

Color psychologist don’t. And they have loads of studies backing up their theories. The general model of color psychology relies on six basic principles:

Over at Starbright Floral Design, we get to work with lots of colors everyday and all of us have our favorites. But why are they our favorites and what does that say? Up this week :

Purple

What makes purple so special?

Purple is the color of harmony. It combines the spiritual aspect of blue with the powerful energy of red. This union of introspection and action makes purple flowers unique. They expand your imagination while simultaneously grounding you in reality. Purple flowers will connect you to your deepest thoughts, while quelling any anxiety that may arise alongside them.

For the Studio

Purple flowers are perfect for artists because they stimulate the imagination. Musicians, painters, designers, and all other creative types have a lot to gain from keeping a vase of purple flowers in their studios. Purple is the color of creativity. It encourages free and independent thought, thinking outside the box, and going against the grain. Purple flowers will bring a sense of the magical and mysterious into your studio. If you’re suffering from writer’s block, stop by and pick up a bouquet of purple flowers, and watch your imagination bloom.

For the Nursery

Purple flowers are a great choice for decorating a baby’s room. The color purple evokes unconditional love and selflessness. It also encourages sensitivity. Purple flowers in a nursery will help cultivate compassion in your relationships with others, especially your children, or other people who depend on you. Do you find it difficult to be giving in stressful situations? Keeping purple flowers nearby will enhance your sensitivity to the needs and emotions of the people around you. At the same time, purple is the color of power. Purple flowers in your child’s room will give you the wisdom you need to maintain help the elusive balance between flexibility and control.