I began with brainstorming which garden I would choose to to create an icon for.

Once decided, I began researching reference images, which was surprisingly difficult.

After finding the images I went to work on finding out as many bits of information as I could about the garden. Here are some examples:

"It is made up of arching arches set atop checkered cube-like foundations.
A stairway leads up to the topmost terrace roofs.", as well as "Plants are grown above ground level in the Hanging Garden, and tree roots are embedded in an upper terrace rather than in the dirt.", and "The whole thing resembled a mountain!", etc.

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Now that Brainstorming is complete, it was time to get to work.

Here's what I did:

On the bottom right is a lot of the process I went through to get the final works. The rest of the images were the results.

And here is the final printed file:

The process of creating these had it's fair share of difficulties. For example, simplifying previously complex designs was hard for me. I ultimately was able to learn a minimalist approach to designing the icon, and successfully met the criteria. Not only that, but I managed to make something that I think is genuinely really cool.

- Christian Bass