Being part of the great designers’ community, we couldn’t help noticing a lot of discussions regarding the golden ratio in design. While it might seem the next best thing, actually, this ratio often occurs in nature and has been used in artwork for centuries.
What is the golden ratio?
It’s very likely you have seen the graphic representation bellow. It is the visual representation (one of them) of the Golden Ratio.
fibonacci_spiralThe golden ratio (aka “divine section”) is a mathematical ratio (a number equal to approximately 1.6180) that appears countless times in geometry, art, architecture etc. It was studied for the first time by the ancient greek mathematicians and it has been fascinating scholars for more than 2,400 years.
Use it in your design!
Over time, many great artist (and by “great” we mean “DaVinci-great”) have used this ratio in their work. It’s not quite clear why, but humans are drawn by it, thus making the artwork appear even more beautiful in the viewers’ eyes.
Many today’s designs (websites, logos etc.) are based on it. See, for example, Twitter:
Here are some examples where you can most certainly rely on this rule:
– the content-sidebar ratio
– header-content font size
– photography (the rule of thirds)