Cole & Son | Secret Garden

Secret Garden takes the conventions of a foliage pattern and quietly subverts them. Among the leaves are sea shells and garden snails sharing the same spiral geometry, so land and water are put on equal terms and the eye cannot quite settle on which one it is looking at. Shells and snails share the same logarithmic spiral, and the design is quietly built on that fact rather than on a visual joke alone.

The drawing is fine and dense, the whole surface covered, and the humour lies in the detail rather than the composition. Nothing is exaggerated, and the joke is only visible to someone who looks. It was drawn as a companion to Nautilus, and the two share that habit of treating natural history as material for a puzzle rather than a catalogue.

Both colourways stay within green, which is unusually disciplined for a design of this kind and gives it the character of a single considered choice rather than a range. It behaves best in small enclosed rooms where a covering pattern is welcome: a cloakroom, a boot room, a garden room, a small study. It sits well with rattan, painted timber and old botanical prints. Holding to two greens also avoids the fussiness that overtakes most whimsical papers within a year of living with them.