Output
This particular style, Art Nouveau, lends itself particularly well to the design of packaging of all things sweet; confectionary, chocolate, cookies and all manner of other "naughty" food that we would be so much better off not eating. Beyond that any luxury food or drink, such as truffles, paté, caviar, champagne, liqueur and cognac labels or packages, or the corporate/printed material that goes with them can be designed in the Art Nouveau style also.Restaurants and cafes that have a turn of the century feel and decor are another area of application. Antique and jewelry establishments that specialise in artifacts of that era can also get the Art Nouveau treatment. Art Nouveau has a distinctly European, especially Central European, quality in its essence, so wherever you are trying to set this mood, go for it.

Of all the styles that we cover on this website Art Nouveau is quite possibly the hardest to come to grips with in terms of what we try to accomplish here; since it has such a distinctive quality to begin with, and also because Art Nouveau design itself was derived from previous eras and distant cultures.

What we have to bear in mind, as always, is that we are not trying to create work that looks as if it was designed in the year 1900! I for one wouldn't even know how to begin doing that anyway, given the exquisite draftsmanship and craftsmanship of the designers of that period. what we do have to do, first and foremost, is to grasp the fundamentals of the design of this period and then take elements of design and typography from that period and apply it to our own project.

Material
Art Nouveau Flowers
Art Nouveau Ornaments
Art Nouveau Fonts
Art Nouveau Dingbats

Example 01 "La Grande Rue de Pera"
I have created 2 menus for an imaginary restaurant on the Istiklal Caddesi in Istanbul, Turkey, where such establishments are to be found. In fact my own students will be starting a project for a menu design for an existing patisserie, the Markiz Pastanesi, in the same location very shortly.

Art Nouveau design, although extremely well drafted and with very good perspective in its drawings, is essentially flat. This is largely due to the contours that the designers of the period loved to use. Contours are not found in nature and their presence in Art Nouveau graphic design does have a flattening effect. What I have done with the first menu is combining Art Nouveau refernced typography with 3D images of flowers that I rendered in Bryce. The flower is the lotus, a great Art Nouveau favourite along with the Lily (incidentally, the rose is definitely not an Art Nouveau flower, stay away from roses in your projects!). I have used the 3D quality deliberately to give the contemporary angle emphasis. Another thing that I have done, not only here both in both menus, is the usage of plenty of negative space: Art Nouveau design is not exactly renowned for its loose pages; the designs are often extremely dense. Contemporary design, or at least the kind that I like, on the other hand, is loose and this is one feature of it that you should not sacrifice. In the second menu, again I used Art Nouveau type, and this time, with contours. The flower I used is the Lily and here I replaced the contour with a Photoshop layer style, complete with drop shadow, again a feature not to be found in original Art nouveau design:

Example 02 "Bebek Marzipan", Confectionary box
The neighborhood of Bebek, in Istanbul, is famous for this establishment that sells Marzipan. I have re-designed the cover of their boxes in 3 versions. In the first one I used Art Nouveau typography and plenty of negative space, in the second I again dimensionalised the essentially Art Nouveau flower. Here as in the 3rd version I used boxes and compartments for various visual data, such as images or type - something Art Nouveau designers did continuously. In fact these boxes and the hierarchies and compartmentalisation that they create are the main reason why Art Nouveau design is as uncluttered and readable as it is, despite the density of the layouts.

Example 03 "Cameo Corner", website header
Cameo's, relief broaches often depicting portraits in profile in two colours, were extremely fashionable all during the 19th century and well into the Edwardian era and thus can be looked upon as a product specific to the Art Nouveau period. Here I have designed a header for an imaginary jeweler, who specialises in cameos. I have used pewter and gold, emulating the style of Art Nouveau jewelry and its craftsmanship. Obviously I have adapted this to cı-ontemporary web design, aligning objects top and left.

Example 04, Liqueur Label
Art Nouveau typography and shapes evocative of Art Nouveau (one is in fact, a quite contemporary geometric array) were used in a design that is reminiscent of Secessionist wine labels.