Flower Gardening Research - Audience

Existing Flower Gardening Books:

 

Stereotypically, the target audience for flower gardening and gardening in general are middle-aged and elderly people. This is reflected within the existing flower gardening book examples I have collected. The design and layout of the books are all quite traditional and conservative, utilising a strict grid system of columns of information and accompanying imagery. It is also largely focused on information, more so than imagery. This is something that the demographic of middle-aged and elderly would respond to the most, as most guide books were written this way during their youth, and it is something they would have grown up with.

For my flower gardening guidebook, I want the content and design to appeal and respond to the young audience. 'The Millenials' are a generation that grew up with more design focused books, ones that focus on the aesthetic, colour, and feel of the publications. However, I do not want the guidebook to be for 'students', this is because I want the publication to be designed in a more sophisticated style. For this reason, my target audience will be the 'young adult'.

 

 

Another audience which gardening books are sometimes aimed at are children. This is because children often want to get involved in the activities of their parents, or the parents themselves may simply want to teach their children about gardening or create for them a hobby/activity. The children aimed gardening books have, as most children books do, a bigger focus on imagery than on text. This is because children have less patience and focus so can get disinterested quicker, especially if they are faced with big chunks of text when they are still learning to read.

The differences between gardening books aimed at the middle-aged/elderly and at children are opposites. Where elderly aimed books have a lot of information/text and less imagery, the children books have a lot of imagery and less information/text. This reveals an approach that I should be aiming for within my guidebook design, just like the young adults fall in the middle of the elderly and children, there should be a middd ground reached between the amount of information and imagery I include within my designs. I will aim to find a balance that not only appeals visually to the young adult, but also provides with all the information they are seeking from my guidebook.