About Digital Landscapes
Digital Landscapes was born out of a frustration at existing training for Vectorworks and SketchUp. The courses we attended were often very technical and somewhat dry. We found learning more advanced techniques tricky without guidance as to where we could find the information to progress, and learning new skills would often take us longer than it should.
We started chatting about how there could be another way. Courses that help people incrementally build skills whilst building their confidence with complex pieces of software; training delivered with precise, and concise, instructions and no jargon-filled waffle; and warm and friendly tutors that make learning, dare we say it, fun.
Our aim is to create courses and resources to help landscape professionals not only improve their graphics skills, but also to improve their efficiency, productivity and profitability. We believe in interactive learning through demonstration and hands-on exercises, amongst a group of like-minded people who are willing you forward.
After graduating with an honours degree in Computer Science, Fiona promptly decided she didn’t want to work in an office full of IT technicians and entered a career in marketing. She then spent two years teaching English to primary school students in Japan, before returning to the UK and studying at London College of Garden Design, graduating in 2011.
Since then Fiona has done a mix of private design work and freelancing for other designers (including Jo Thompson, Butter Wakefield, Adolfo Harrison, Mark Gregory, and James Alexander Sinclair). In 2014 she started tutoring for The London College of Garden Design, where she still works, and she also taught for Capel Manor from 2016 to 2020.
Fiona moved out of London in 2021 and can be found running around the glorious hills in peaceful Malvern with her two dogs.
Fiona Silk
Emily graduated from university with a masters in ecology and environmental management and found herself mapping species and habitat distribution using GIS software. She discovered her calling in the attention to detail required by GIS and was soon improving workflows and training others how to use it.
With ten years experience of GIS, Emily took to Vectorworks like a duck to water! She graduated with distinction from The Cotswold Gardening School in 2014 and has run a busy design and freelancing studio for the last ten years.
Emily and Fiona met eight years ago whilst working for James Alexander-Sinclair and now live ten minutes from each other, juggling drawing for James, private design work and Digital Landscapes. Emily lives on the other side of the hills from Fiona, with her family and her own two dogs.
Emily Sharpe
“I like computers: always have done but, in spite of my best efforts, CAD has rather escaped me and I am of a generation of designers who are happier with bits of paper and animated descriptions. Therefore I need some young and springy geniuses to take my airy scribbles and transform them into something easily comprehensible by clients and contractors. Step forward Fiona and Emily.”