Butterfly House

At Ladew Topiary Gardens’ Butterfly House, you can experience the habitat and life cycle of local butterflies and caterpillars. The signage we created at Ashton Design was intended to merge with its environment, utilizing the vernacular of the butterfly house and allowing the flora and fauna within to be the art. The signs guide visitors and teach them about the remarkable metamorphosis, from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly.

My role in this project included signage programming, art direction of illustrations and fabrication, project management, and layout design. We collaborated with Sue Myers, an illustrator who also works as Ladew’s Butterfly House Coordinator, to create the gorgeous botanical illustrations.

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The Welcome sign greets visitors upon entry and features images of native butterflies, caterpillars, and moths that could possibly be in the butterfly house. Since different species appear in the house at different times in the season, we made magnets of each insect for staff to place in the “Today’s Insects” section. Now, visitors know what to search for inside the butterfly house.

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There are five interpretive signs throughout the house, which walk visitors through the butterfly metamorphosis as well as what caterpillars eat to thrive: Egg, Caterpillar, Chrysalis, Butterfly, and Plants.

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We had over 40 movable signs fabricated to be placed next to host plants throughout the butterfly house. The name of the plant appears at the top, with an image of the caterpillar and corresponding butterfly that feeds on the plant.

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We also developed a couple outlier signs, like this one that explains the function of the rain barrel seen in the butterfly house.

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