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Golden Ratio

melted.design

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Re: Golden Ratio

#41

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

jacobolus wrote: post #17
endorphone wrote: post #4

"Golden Ratio is a natural ratio found everywhere. From flowers to shells, from our fingers to the galaxy, this mathematical ratio makes all forms look visually balanced and gratifying." Both of those claims have been broadly debunked, and the so-called golden ratio is grossly oversold.

It does show up in plants (artichokes, cactuses, sunflowers, pineapples, etc.), as the angle between successive leaves/seeds/petals. This is called spiral phyllotaxis. You can make some cool art out of this idea with a strobe light, https://www.johnedmark.com/phi/ It also shows up anywhere with pentagonal (or icosahedral) symmetry, since the golden ratio is the ratio of the diagonal to the side of a pentagon. So that…

The creator of the sinebow [1] uses this property to construct color sequences that are maximally distant from each other. You just keep rotating around the circle in steps of phi and it sorts itself out.

[1] http://basecase.org/env/on-rainbows

Re: Golden Ratio

#43

Post by krsdcbl »

This isn't too insightful. The article swimmingly explains that there is a "golden ratio" and then goes on to just repeat "you can use that in design", with no concrete examples or explanations aside a small use case for font sizing

Re: Golden Ratio

#45

Post by bjornjaja »

kingbirdy wrote: post #25
bjornjaja wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely not bullshit with respect to art—it is used in many aesthetically pleasing and well balanced designs.

But that doesn't mean the golden ratio is the reason it's aesthetically apealling. There is good art that uses the ratio, and bad art that uses it, and good art that doesn't use it.

Agreed, but it’s recursive nature does make it appealing in ways other ratios do not.

Re: Golden Ratio

#46

Post by hnarayanan »

dmix wrote: post #19
Red_Tarsius wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reminds me of the classic proportions described by Jay Hambridge in The Elements of Dynamic Symmetry (1926). He was an art historian who argued that the Greco-Roman art and architecture was based on root rectangles . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_rectangle#Jay_Hambidge I just noticed that Wersin is mentioned right after him! Hambridge's theories were quite controversial, but the book is an enjoyable read…

Have you found any utility in this stuff with your work? I mostly just use frameworks that think about this stuff for me while working hard to keep consistency in spacing (padding, margins, etc) which functional ones like basscss and tachyons do a good job of pushing you towards (much more than Bootcamp and others).

What frameworks do you use that think about this? All the “big ones” that I know of, Bootstrap, Foundation, ... have really standard 12 column grids.

Re: Golden Ratio

#47

Post by jacobolus »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #41
jacobolus wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does show up in plants (artichokes, cactuses, sunflowers, pineapples, etc.), as the angle between successive leaves/seeds/petals. This is called spiral phyllotaxis. You can make some cool art out of this idea with a strobe light, https://www.johnedmark.com/phi/ It also shows up anywhere with pentagonal (or icosahedral) symmetry, since the golden ratio is the ratio of the diagonal to the side of a pentagon. So that…

The creator of the sinebow [1] uses this property to construct color sequences that are maximally distant from each other. You just keep rotating around the circle in steps of phi and it sorts itself out. [1] http://basecase.org/env/on-rainbows

You might enjoy my doodling at https://observablehq.com/@jrus/categorical

Re: Golden Ratio

#48

Post by dmix »

hnarayanan wrote: post #46
dmix wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you found any utility in this stuff with your work? I mostly just use frameworks that think about this stuff for me while working hard to keep consistency in spacing (padding, margins, etc) which functional ones like basscss and tachyons do a good job of pushing you towards (much more than Bootcamp and others).

What frameworks do you use that think about this? All the “big ones” that I know of, Bootstrap, Foundation, ... have really standard 12 column grids.

I'm talking about letting frameworks handle the space ratios for padding/margins/headline size in addition to grids. Whether they use golden ratios specifically or not wasnt the point rather deferring to the library designers who most certainly are aware of the golden ratio.

Re: Golden Ratio

#49

Post by dr_dshiv »

Did you know that the golden ratio defines the temporal structure of the brain?

While the main brainwave bands are harmonics (theta is roughly double delta, alpha is roughly double theta, beta is roughly double alpha and so on), the band widths have a ratio of the golden ratio. That's because the golden ratio is the most irrational number. While harmonic oscillations will overlap regularly, irrational frequency ratios will never overlap. This allows for multiplexing in the brain, EMG , where high theta and low theta don't interfere with one another.

Pletzer, B., Kerschbaum, H., & Klimesch, W. (2010). When frequencies never synchronize: the golden mean and the resting EEG. Brain research, 1335, 91-102.

Re: Golden Ratio

#50

Post by notfashion »

krsdcbl wrote: post #43

This isn't too insightful. The article swimmingly explains that there is a "golden ratio" and then goes on to just repeat "you can use that in design", with no concrete examples or explanations aside a small use case for font sizing

The idea is that you can use it anywhere you need to make a decision about proportions. It's not complicated. Designers know that it's no use if you need a proportion close to 1:10 or 1:1, but there is often enough flexibility to use it (say when designing a window or a floor plan.)
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