About Florian Gray

A Passion for Design, Art & Collecting…

There are those who search for buried gold, and there are those who search for forgotten beauty.

I belong to the latter. As a lifelong, self-styled researcher and explorer for my own collection, I’m constantly on the look out for interesting specimens in typography, pattern, pigments, motifs, paper and everything that goes along with that. I spend hours following the trails of history wherever they may lead.

Sometimes that’s a vintage stationery shop and sometimes it’s an auction site where I go down the rabbit hole and end up buying things I didn’t even realize existed just hours before. And sometimes, quite often actually, it’s somthing stumbled upon online, a beautiful image for example, that doesn’t cost anything, thanks to the many museums and organizations that are now putting their collections out into the world for public use.

In My Ideal Life…

I would spend one season sketching faded quattrocento wall paintings in an Umbrian monastery; another, examining fragments of William Morris wallpapers tucked away in the attic of an English manor house, or studying mineral pigments whose recipes first emerged along the banks of the Nile thousands of years ago.
My real life is not quite so quietly exciting, but it does have its moments.

I like to travel with notebooks, fountain pens, watercolours, a camera, and a well-worn satchel rather than modern technology, although as you’re reading this online, I obviously do use the latter. But it’s not quite as romantic is it? Albeit, it does have its merits.

I love history. And I love wandering through ancient castles, museum storerooms, botanical gardens, village markets, old libraries and archaeological sites and feel completely at home doing so. In fact, it’s where I feel most at home - especially in the quiet spaces.

I’m curious, with a love of learning and discovery. I believe that history is not only understood through great events such as wars and other political milestones, but through the colours people mixed, the fabrics they wove, the letters they sent, the books they illuminated, and the spaces they creatively decorated with designs of the day.

My personal style and philosophy echo eachother: practical enough for travel, yet touched with the romance of an artist, somewhere between a bohemian illustrator and an old-world expedition traveller.
Fg.