Case study · 2024
Secret Garden
A retirement gift to a gardener who had spent thirty years on the same small Rotterdam plot. The brief: capture the garden, not a photograph of it.
- Place
- Rotterdam, NL
- Scale
- 1 disc
- Lead
- 3–5 business days
Client
Private piece · Rotterdam
- Discs
- 1
- Specimens
- 12 pressed
- Print passes
- 2 layered
- Lead time
- 6 days
The work
The challenge
Pressed flowers don't scan beautifully — they read as flat, sepia and dry. We needed the disc to feel alive, like the garden in midsummer, while still using the real specimens the client had collected.
Our approach
We pressed and scanned twelve specimens from the garden, rebuilt them as layered illustrations, and printed in two passes — a soft cream-and-olive underpainting for atmosphere, then sharp foreground stems and petals on top. The disc holds depth at any viewing angle because the layers physically sit at different heights of ink.
The outcome
Presented at the retirement dinner. The original pressed flowers were boxed alongside the disc so both could be kept together.
In their words
Thirty summers, on one disc. I didn't know that was a thing you could do.
Materials & build
What's in the piece.
Dimensions
120 mm disc · 12 mm brass standoff
- 011 salvaged disc, satin-polished
- 02Layered botanical illustration from client specimens
- 03Cream-and-olive underpainting + sharp foreground pass
- 04Brass standoff mount + archival pressed-flower box
In situ
The piece, from a few angles.
Before & after
Drag to see the restoration.
Every disc starts scratched, dusty, on its way to a bin. We hand-polish, mask, and print — turning a forgotten silver circle into the piece on the right.
Want a piece in this spirit?
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