29 year old Lauren Craig is the founder and owner of ‘Thinking Flowers?’ an environmentally ethical floral design consultancy company founded in 2003.
After only 7 years, Lauren has combined and respected the natural beauty of flowers with her creative flare to produce breathtaking flower installations for prestigious venues and organisations, including, The Tate Modern, BAFTA, Westminster Cathedral, The Royal Festival Hall and created an installation for the Obama inauguration celebrations at The House of Commons on request.
Despite the encouraging outcome of a rapidly flourishing business, the trigger that initially caused Lauren to turn to the beauty of flowers was far from positive. After experiencing losses of loved ones through knife and gun crime, Lauren realised the comfort and joy that flowers bought her in a time of sadness. After completing a BA Honours degree in Marketing and Advertising, she decided to focus on the power of flowers through studying floral design.
In her first year, she managed to secure three contracts, turning her dream of combing art with trade into a reality. Her perseverance eventually resulted in Lauren being the youngest ever post graduate in floral design and enterprise.
Thinking Flowers’ main aim is to highlight the demand for flowers and the unethical elements that have come with the cut-flower industry. By raising awareness and offering an alternative through the use of sustainable sources with low impact transport and packaging, Lauren hopes to create natural, beautiful, simple floral installations with a cleaner supply chain by using fewer resources.
Inspired by the Eden Project and Patagonia, Lauren attempts to keep installations beautiful in their simplicity by keeping the flowers close to their natural state. The services that ‘Thinking Flowers?’ offers are: floral design and consultancy, floral installations, design workshops, styling services and green-waste disposal (many flowers are re-used and recycled).
Lauren Craig also has other strings to the ‘Thinking?’ bow, including ‘Thinking Images?’, which was initiated by her photographic documentation of the aftermath of street crime and culture and ‘Thinking Therapies?’, an alternative medicine company.
With three rapidly developing businesses, Lauren Craig is surely one to watch. For more information on ‘Thinking Flowers?’ please email info@thinkingflowers.org.uk.
Written by Emma McWhinney
