Graphic Design as Garden Design

I'm a big fan of graphic design.  Good graphic designers are alchemists.  Smart use of font, illustration, and design can transform one's identity.  I occasionally peruse the websites of my favorite graphic designers looking for inspiration for my landscape design.  I came across this recent design by the firm Filthy Media.  They created a branding package for a fascinating new arts and entertainment district in London. 

Here is their description of the project: London Pleasure Gardens (LPG), the major new 20 acre site is opening its doors for the very first time on Saturday 30th June 2012 in the heart of Olympic East London. The colossal project has transformed this forgotten stretch of wasteland into a bonafide wonderland, ready to host a plethora of innovative, world-class art and culture events.

Garden Designers Roundtable: Texture in the Landscape--A Musical Analogy

I’ve been thinking about texture lately.  Texture is one of those generic garden topics like “color” that every garden book dedicates an obligatory chapter.   Photos of hostas, ferns, and other foliage plants often follow.  Despite the rather clichéd use of the word in garden literature, the idea of texture in the landscape does not seem fully explored.  So to better understand what texture might mean in landscape sense, I turn to music. 

According to one source, texture in music means “a structure of interwoven fibers.”  In music, texture refers to the way multiple voices (or instruments) interact in a composition.  Texture in music is a way of understanding hierarchy.  Which voice is prominent?  Are they all equal?  How do they combine to create the whole?  Already my mind was spinning about materials in a landscape.  Texture is not just about a type of plant (i.e. big leaf foliage plants), but about the way materials or plants work together to create effects.  That got me thinking: how do we combine materials for artistic effect? 

Music theory describes four types of texture in music: monophonic, polyphonic, homophonic, and heterophonic.  Now before you glaze over, each of these concepts has some rather fascinating ways of understanding texture in a landscape setting.  Consider these visual analogies:

Native Cultivars on Green Roof

How do I pick my favorite gas stations?  Lowest prices? Nope, it's the plants, of course.  Here is a great gas station on the corner of 22nd and M St. NW in Washington, D.C.  The roof of this Exxon station was designed as a part of the 22 West Condos.

photo by City Paper