What is Golden Ratio?

Golden Ratio is also known as the Golden Section, Golden Mean, Divine Proportion, or the Greek letter Phi. It is a special number that is approximately equal to 1.618. It is originated from the Fibonacci sequence, which is a naturally occurring sequence of numbers that can be found everywhere.

What this Fibonacci sequence is?

The Fibonacci sequence can be stated as the sum of two numbers that appear before it.

The Greeks unveiled the Golden Ratio to show the difference between any two numbers in a better manner, which is 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, and many more.

This famous pattern shows its presence everywhere in nature including flowers, pinecones, hurricanes, and even huge spiral galaxies in space.

But the Fibonacci sequence goes beyond nature. In the graphic designing industry, these are referred to as the Golden Ratio.

It marks its importance in designing everything, like logo design, print design, and website design.

Relation with Design

When a line is divided into two parts and the longer part (a) is divided by the smaller (b), then it equals the sum of (a) + (b), which is divided by (a), it is equal to 1.618.

This formula helps the designers to create shapes, logos, layouts, and many more designs. As a Golden Ratio is an irrational number, which is approximately equal to 1.618, it is better to design and understand visually.

The Golden Ratio in use - History

We have studied that the Logo design shows its importance since ancient times, and it can be traced during ancient Greece, where the coins were used as Monograms. Since the early times, people have used a wide variety of symbols for deciphering the identification and social rank.

Since the 13th century, and the patterns, goldsmiths, and others firstly began to use the logos as the sign of ownership for their business. Credit for the art printed company was been assigned to the printed companies. The style and innovations continued to grow, and there came the era of designing logos. Same like that, Golden Ratio marks its presence from at least 4,000 years ago in the human art and designing field.

It is used in the art and designing industry, to create logos. The ancient Greek architecture marks the association of the Golden Ratio with it, which shows pleasing dimensional relationships between the width of a building along with its height and columns that support the whole structure making it appealing to look at. The appealing picture of Monalisa was drawn using the Golden Ratio 1:0.618 and was coined golden.

The ratio between the length of the rectangle and width is the same as that of the Golden Ratio, and it is easy to demonstrate the golden spiral, that is often depicted and constructed within a rectangular frame.

This spiral could be made by aligning it with the original rectangle into two parts, i.e a square and a rectangle of the same proportional width and length. The outcome is not truly algorithmic, rather it is a close approximation. The artists used to visualize and apply this divine proportion to their paintings.

Uses

Typography

Typography is an artistic methodology of presenting the written language as legible, readable, attractive and appealing when displayed.

The term is also applied to the style, design, practice, arrangement, and appearance of the letters, numbers as well as symbols created by the activity.

It includes the elements like the size of the letters, line length, and spacing on a line.

Its ultimate goal is to create a text that is easy to read, precise, concise, attractive, and appealing to look at, which would increase the productivity of the business, brand, and product.


It helps to find which size should be used for the header of the website, blog, landing page, and many more.

If it becomes difficult to find and figuring the text size of different texts in the designs, then the designer can use the ratio as a guide, for showing the proper size. Like if the body text is 11px, then multiplying it by 1.618, it becomes 17.789px.

Here the Golden Ratio helps in making decisions in determining the size of the text.

Cropping and resizing images

Cropping marks its importance in improving the composition of an image in a convenient manner. When we click an image with more space in the surrounding area and feel to remove the unwanted places, then it is better to crop the image. It helps in composing the image in the right manner.

It improves the size of the picture and adjusts it as per our own will. The cropping tool removes the unwanted space with proper ease and makes a proper image.

Along with cropping to improve the composition of a photograph, cropping to enlarge a subject in the frame is a common reason for people cropping their images. Golden Spiral marks its presence as being a guide for clearing the composition of an image. It resizes the image and gives it a proper alignment.

Logo Creation

A Logo is a design or image that is used to symbolize the business of an organization. It is also used to identify the products, uniforms vehicles, etc.

Though it is the Image-Based Logos or Word Based Logos both types play a vital role in communicating the unique identity, prosperity, status, and efforts of any organization or brand.

As all human faces are unique and contribute to individual identity. Moreover, the face is one of the most fundamental parts of the body for self-recognition; so in this way, logos are intended to be the face of the company as it communicates the important brand message of any industry or product to its target consumers by providing it a unique identity.

When a designer thinks to come up with a new logo design, then they move towards the Golden Ratio that helps to sketch the proportions and shapes. The logos of prominent brands follow this concept and technique.

For example, Apple, Pepsi, and Twitter. These are iconic logos, which are simple, elegant, appealing, and attractive, which connects maximum audiences towards it.

UX Design

The use of the ratio in the field of design is very convenient, as it only needs to add the formula for generating the columns and proportional layouts.

If a designer wants to create a layout with a sidebar, along with the area of the main content in a width of 960px, then they would calculate the width of the main column to be 960px / 1.618, which will ultimately generate a width of 593px.

It helps to factor the margin, take the measurements to even numbers, and also fit a multiple based on the system. It also helps to bring the most pleasing balance between these columns.

Design Space between the Content

Many times, we go by standard padding and margin to define the gutters and spacing between the content blocks irrespective of what the layout sizes are.

When these positive spaces or negative spaces, are arranged and managed, then these often make or break the final result. Here comes the use of golden rectangles which ensures that the inter-layout spaces are proportional and calculated.

Content of Website

The design of a landing page should be aligned with a sharp and clear design. A simple and clean design would make it appealing to the eyes of the customers. The presentation, look and overall structure of the page design should be created in a way that impacts its effectiveness which would help to traipse the attention of more viewers to it.

It should be designed clean with proper text in an organized manner to make it appealing for the viewers. Its primary goal must be making it easy for the visitors. So it is crucial that all the elements of the page work towards these objectives. Though it is the filling of a form, purchasing something, or downloading an ebook, all the things should be made clean and sharp for the visitors.

The Golden Ratio could be used to highlight how columns of text are arranged properly. When there ae minimal text on the landing page, then the ratio help on the website. A page that is designed with a narrow column of text and a wider block of text, then it attracts the attention of the visitor and also highlights itself in an appealing manner. It also helps the visitors to navigate different types of content, where the video, image-based, and other content.

Magazine Cover Design

Golden Ratio marks their presence and importance in the creation of effective design covers of magazines. It is used by the designs for determining the proportion in a perfect manner. It balances the size of an image in a proper manner and makes it appealing to the eyes of people. It attracts maximum readers by bringing creativity in design.

Myth

Many people think that only the logos created with the golden ratio are perfect. Do you think it is true? Obviously, not. Because there exist many logos, that are created without using the concept, which is made perfectly and is appealing to be seen.

This is a myth that has to be changed. Many organizations seek to create a design from this technique, but in the end, it would not matter.

The people also think that the only designs which are made with golden ratio become most prominent is a myth. But there are other logos as well, which become prominent without being made with this technique.

Do you also think that the logo that is created with this ratio is easy to remember and others are complicated? No, because there are many logos that are easy to recall even after a long time, without being used with the technique.

The Golden Ratio marks its importance in bringing the most appealing designs, features, and elements designs for the audience. It is used in the logo and graphic designing industry, for designing logos. It is the guaranteed way that attracts the attention of maximum customers.

[The images are being taken from the registered companies and belong to their respective owners only.]