AIFD book 2022The Amer­i­can Insti­tute of Flo­ral Design­ers (AIFD) is a trade asso­ci­a­tion rep­re­sent­ing flo­ral design­ers who pass a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion test after years of study and then pay annu­al dues to keep their cer­ti­fi­ca­tion cur­rent. The asso­ci­a­tion has been active for over 50 years and is the leader in flo­ral design trends in the Unit­ed States. Each year they hold a con­fer­ence and put out new work­shops and teach­ing materials.

Revised for Modern Designs

In 2022, it revised its exten­sive text­book guide to terms and tech­niques and issued the third edi­tion. While this AIFD book isn’t entire­ly new, it is up-to-date with the lat­est in flo­ral archi­tec­ture, trends, and terms.  The col­lab­o­ra­tors from AIFD who re-edit­ed the book got togeth­er to show­case the changes in a Zoom call I watched and it was so intrigu­ing, I ordered  The AIFD® Guide to Flo­ral Design: Terms, Tech­niques, and Tra­di­tions.

I’ve been a most­ly self-taught flo­ral design­er for over 20 years, but that does­n’t mean I haven’t accu­mu­lat­ed a vast library of flo­ral design books at home and the stu­dio. This book is a required text if you take any of the in-per­son or online cours­es from AIFD. It can be pricey, but you can find used copies for about half the orig­i­nal price even though this book came out in 2022.

From the Publisher

The 3rd edi­tion of the AIFD Guide to Flo­ral Design is the flo­ral design­er’s ulti­mate ref­er­ence guide. Every­thing from plant phys­i­ol­o­gy to design ele­ments to cut flower care and han­dling is cov­ered in this metic­u­lous­ly com­piled com­pendi­um. Don’t expect a lot of pret­ty pic­tures, do expect the most com­plete col­lec­tion of flo­ral design infor­ma­tion avail­able in one book. This book is a must for every seri­ous flo­ral designer.”

About AIFD

Estab­lished in 1965, the Amer­i­can Insti­tute of Flo­ral Design­ers is, today, the flo­ral industry’s lead­ing non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to estab­lish­ing, main­tain­ing and rec­og­niz­ing the high­est stan­dard of pro­fes­sion­al flo­ral design. AIFD and its world­wide accred­it­ed mem­bers are in the fore­front of the indus­try in pre­sent­ing edu­ca­tion­al design pro­grams and in design­ing flow­ers for such renowned events as the Tour­na­ment of Ros­es Parade, Acad­e­my Awards and Pres­i­den­tial Inau­gu­ra­tions. They are an extra­or­di­nary group of tal­ent­ed artists.”

Many peo­ple ask if you need to be “AIFD cer­ti­fied” to become a flo­ral design­er and the short answer is, “No.” But, we do rec­om­mend tak­ing a vari­ety of in-per­son class­es and online class­es to help round out your skills. Class­es we rec­om­mend includ­ing our work­shops and online cours­es include:

Flower Duet

Phil Rul­lo­da

Flo­ral Design Institute

Fran­coise Weeks

Sue McLeary