Abstract: With rapid development of forest recreation, more attention is paid to visual quality of overall mountain forest landscape. Due to the complexity and diversity of beauty of forest landscape, there is no uniform standard for visual quality of forest landscape in China, and a perfect design theory is not existed. Concerns about visual design of forest landscape have driven many countries to form theoretical systems which are dominated by proactive design approach (PDA) of British and visual management system (VMS) of American. This paper studies the aesthetic concept of Chinese traditional culture, extracts design principles of aesthetic from classical gardens, landscape paintings and ancient villages. Combining foreign design theories, the authors conclude ten design principles, i. e. people\|oriented, a winding path leading to a secluded place, constructing landscape according to the lie of a mountain, integration of forest patches, with soft boundary, suitable scale and location, coordination of characteristics and background, season changes, matching site with trees, and building the imagery. Taking the Forest Farm of Temple of Sleeping Buddha in Beijing as an example, visual problems are analyzed.