Golden Ratio in design

We've been asked to write something about the Golden Ratio in design. This amazing term is the one which appoints the proportion between two quantities when their ratio is the same as the ratio of their sum to the larger of the two quantities, and you can see it better in this image:

This ratio can be obtained from the division between two consecutive numbers from the Fibonacci progression (Fibonacci or Leonardo of Pisa was an Italian mathematician from the XII and XIII centuries), whose numbers are obtained through the addition of the two previous numbers of the succession (1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89,144...). This division has a result of roughly 1.618.

Golden Ratio in nature

This ratio appears naturally in several aspects of nature as the position of some plants' leafs or petals, the shape of shells, galaxies, reproduction of rabbits... Even the entire human form may be broken down into a series of Golden Ratios.

But, appart from that, many designs are based on the Golden Ratio, as it is considered as a beautiful proportion to see. Some examples are the shapes of credit cards, postcards, playing cards, posters, wide-screen televisions, photographs, light switch plates and cars, webpages, and many brands' logos. There are also even hisatorical art samples which show the Golden Ratio, such as portraits, paintings, buildings, sculptures...Some of these historical samples are the Athens Parthenon, the Mona Lisa, the Vitruvian Man, and many other paintings, sculptures and buildings, as a result of trying to create beauty.


According to more actual designs, for instance, most apple designs are based on the Golden Ratio, as their logo, the iCloud logo or their mobile phones. Something we use daily as our credit cards or identity cards have the Golden Ratio on them. Also the logos of National Geographic, Toyota, Pepsi, BP, Grupo Boticario, Twitter, and also the Twitter main webpage, but surely many more have this ratio. You can see these examples here.

To sum up, the Golden Ratio or Fibonacci number is something which surrounds us naturally or artificially, that makes us see things beautiful. It may appear by chance or be really studied by designers, but it's on many things we see, and realizing and learning about it is amazing.

I hope you liked and learned a bit about this wonderful ratio. I'll write the next post soon, see you.