Know-How Exchange : Taglines/Names

We're an ornamental iron work company with 58 years experience. While historically we focused on more traditional designs, we've been doing more work with innovative Designers & Architects interested in less traditional, more modern contemporary designs. Our original tag line was, "Enjoy the Timeless Appeal of Custom Ornamental Iron". More recently we have used, "We're Proud to be 100 Years Behind the Times". But therein lies the dilemma. I'd like a succinct Tag that can somehow tickle both genres: traditional & contemporary with just the right style.

I’m including below an excerpt from our current collateral that addresses this issue in hopes it might help some of you design professionals more creative than myself. A great degree of thanks in advance for all of your help…

Who We Are:
Founded in 1951, Florissant Iron Works has entered the new century with a well-deserved reputation for artistic vision in ornamental metals. Serving primarily the Midwest regional market, Florissant Iron Works specializes in the design, fabrication, preservation, and installation of fine custom architectural metal work & interior iron décor.

We bring to each project extensive experience in design, ingenuity, advanced technologies, & consummate craftsmanship for a seamless project delivery process from concept to completion.

Whether using original designs or building to your plans, our experienced craftsmen produce exceptionally revered metal work by combining traditional old world fabrication and joinery techniques of forging & casting with modern metal working techniques. These latest techniques afforded by advances in new production technologies such as cad rendering, Electric welding, water jet, Plasma, & Laser cutting methods, & Advanced Finishing have proven to extend the range of our designs while maintaining affordability.

The result - exciting new forms of wrought iron, sand castings, aluminum, brass, & bronze are combined in uncommon, unconventional ways to create unique custom pieces.

Florissant Iron Works was founded in the historic downtown business district of Old Town Florissant, a northern suburb community just north of St. Louis, Missouri. The business has always been family owned and operated & located on the city’s main street known as rue St. Francois. Our office building has been traced by local historians as the oldest commercial building in Florissant.

Metal work began in the area by blacksmiths as far back as the early French settlers. French farmers and fur traders, weary of trekking through the wilderness, settled in the area in the 1760s at the confluence of the Missouri & Mississippi rivers. Florissant still contains landmarks and bears other traces of the French explorers who settled it, the Spanish caretakers who followed them, & the German farmers who migrated to the community nearly a century later. The early blacksmiths made horse shoes & other utilitarian items used in the settlement.

Ornamental ironwork or artist blacksmithing was already prominent in Europe by the 14th Century. In the New World, harsh conditions delayed the practice of decorative blacksmithing. Despite the Industrial Revolution, economic expansion in the 19th century assured that there was much work for the traditional smith. But with each passing decade, the blacksmith’s role was becoming less central.

Waves of subdivisions were built around Florissant's historic core in the post-World War II development rush. During this time, modern metal working techniques were making production of ornamental iron work more affordable than the labor intensive methods of the blacksmith. Our founder originally started the business to take advantage of the new methods and satisfy the growing demand for ornamental iron used in construction during this post war boom.

We are proud of our roots and the heritage of combining old world methods with new world technologies. Since 1951, we have completed tens of thousands of projects all over St. Louis, throughout the Midwest, and as far away as the Carolinas and California.


Who You Are:
As we look at the prism of our diverse Customer base, we see you shining brightly through. We know Interior Designers & Building Architects. Even within just one of your areas of expertise, we know there’s no “one size fits all” solution. No matter what industry segment you serve. We are here to assist. Ornamental metal work is an integral part of your design equation. Whether it’s a common thread you weave into the tapestry of your project’s theme or it’s just the right piece to make a space pop, factoring decorative metal work custom-made by just the right fabrication partner has the ability to transform your portfolio to new heights of achievement.

Our lead iron work designer is both an Engineer and Artist. Having traveled the world and lived abroad, he brings an international perspective to bear for you with architectural influences from all over the Americas, Europe, Middle East, India, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, & Australia. To channel this experience, we have created a studio that is a highly collaborative environment; it is the workshop in which we explore architectural iron work forms and ideas for our clients. We also enjoy the benefit of maintaining an extensive library of historic ironwork references in our Studio. Our library on period and regional ornamental metal spans practically all ancient and modern decorative influences. It is simply the most comprehensive in the area. This collection of technical drawings, foundry pattern books, catalogs, & digests of architectural forms provides the insight and inspiration that is often crucial in the early phases of our role in your projects.

Thus, we are students of ornament. As vast as it is, ornament as it relates to design provides the palette upon which we address the interpretation of your input on style and your client’s input on their patterns of life and behavior. It is with the choice of the ornament & how it is implemented in our metal work, whether classically pure or an innovative mixture, which sets the style of the piece and consequently evokes the trappings of one’s experience with or around it.

With your help, the ornament of metal work will cast upon your client and their guests specific feelings, emotions, expressions, even dreams that they desire. The ability of this medium to perform in this way was discovered by artisans in ancient times. And through the ages, iron work was transformed to be a part of the equation of the architectural movement of each period.

Buildings interiors and exteriors are planned to serve the purposes and styles of the times, locations, and climates of their origins, and exert a planned influence on the activities and lives that they house as long as they continue in use. Soon after the ancient bronze & iron ages began, architectural metal work and iron décor has played a role in the construction and ornament of building interiors & exteriors for practically all of the architectural styles over time. Today we see many of those styles prominently implemented in metal work as well as numerous revivals and innovative mixtures of the classics. A short list of styles in order of historical significance with which we can craft matching metal work include Egyptian, Chinese, Classical Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Japanese, Hindu, Romanesque, Islamic, Gothic, Renaissance, Tudor, Spanish Colonial, Elizabethan, Baroque, Rococo, Georgian, Federal, Victorian, Arts and Crafts, Queen Anne, Art Nouveau, Mission, Neo-Classical, Prairie, Expressionist, Modernism, Art Deco, Usonian, Post Modern, & High Tech Modern…