Apple’s iCloud Icon Uses The Golden Ratio • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple’s iCloud Icon Uses The Golden Ratio

#31

Post by cpeterso » Sat, Jun 18, 2011, 12:13 AM UTC

Artists Komar and Melamid demonstrated the how artistic preferences vary around the world with a 1995 project called "Most Wanted and Least Wanted Paintings".

Komar and Melamid's paintings "reflect the artists' interpretation of a professional market research survey about aesthetic preferences and taste in painting. Intending to discover what a true "people's art" would look like, the artists ... expanded their market research to more than a dozen countries around the globe and in turn, created Most Wanted and Least Wanted paintings for each country."

Curiously, Holland's most and least wanted preferences are nearly the reverse of the other countries!

* Survey results: http://awp.diaart.org/km/

* The resulting paintings: http://awp.diaart.org/km/painting.html

Re: Apple’s iCloud Icon Uses The Golden Ratio

#32

Post by dkrich » Sat, Jun 18, 2011, 2:42 AM UTC

Hey Apple, hows about you come back out of your own asshole?

Re: Apple’s iCloud Icon Uses The Golden Ratio

#33

Post by dylanrw » Sat, Jun 18, 2011, 10:21 AM UTC

This site seems to be filled with wonderful design goodies.

  I wish two things:
  1. That I could read Japanese
  2. The site was in English.

Re: Apple’s iCloud Icon Uses The Golden Ratio

#34

Post by tripzilch » Wed, Jun 22, 2011, 12:42 PM UTC

I just happened to wonder yesterday whether there actually was any scientific data on whether the golden ratio is actually significantly more pleasing than other ratios.

Turns out there isn't much data, and of what there is, it doesn't always point at a significant preference for certain ratios. And even where it does, and then where it actually points near the golden ratio, it's inconclusive whether people prefer 1.5, 1.618 or 1.666.

But yeah they do turn up in nature over and over again.

The "aesthetically pleasing" bit is just something that's been repeated for centuries, swallowed without thinking.

So if there actually were a preference, that sounds like a good explanation. Doesn't really mean it works the other way around, though.

also see: http://plus.maths.org/content/os/issue22/features/golden/ind...