College students love music festivals. How could we convincingly sell our event and bring it closer to an authentic festival experience?
Armed with $400 and under a week of work time, I decided some 4 foot tall floral letters were the answer.

A few design constraints:
* budget ($400)
* time - depending on when people would arrive back on campus, we could have anywhere from 1 other person to 4 other people helping out
* appeal - if these letters didn’t make people stop and stare, they were not going to be displayed
* environmental impact - trying to reduce the waste produced with these letters, as well as making sure that they could be reused

Inspired by large installations at festivals and the resurgence of flower crowns, I mocked up what I thought these letters could be. I wanted something 3D, but buying them seemed too expensive. I also thought of stacking and cutting foam to create the letters, but I realized if given the chance, I wanted to reduce the amount of styrene our organization would be introducing into the waste stream. Our advisor recommended asking the local bar for boxes, which, combined with some boxes we scavanged during move in, was enough to make all the letters.

I looked into the sturdiest way to put together cardboard and decided on hot glue and gum tape. I chose a typeface that would be flatter on bottom for increased stability since it would be windy. Before proceeding, I consulted with some engineering friends on the committee and had them take a look at my mockup. After some calculations, I went ahead and ordered 600 flowers, which in the end, was cutting it close.

My mockup

If the whole thing became a mess, we would set up a DIY flower crown station with the flowers.

We sent out a sign up sheet with detailed instructions - I wanted the project specifications to be detailed enough that even if I wasn’t there, people could work on the project.

The key steps were:

• printing out and taping the template
  
• cutting out the back of the letters
  
• cutting boxes into 6” wide strips for the sides
  
• gluing the letters together and reinforcing them with gum tape
  
• painting the letters
  
• somehow attaching the flowers
  

After arriving on site and seeing the flowers, we realized that we would have to anchor the flowers into the letters somehow. Even though I was initially anti-foam, the material was a good fit for the project and would allow us to stick the flower picks into the letters in a way that we could later recover the flowers.

Our steps after that were:

• breaking the foam into pieces that would fit into the letters
  
• gluing the foam inside the letters
  
• arranging and inserting the flowers
  
• adding leftover foliage as accents
  

By providing clear instructions and delegating work, the letters came together pretty quickly! We finished them a day early.

During the event, tons of people stopped by at our photo spot to take pictures. It was really exciting to see my idea come to life!

People pose with the letters