- I saw a television program
that talked about a secret geometry
and world order conspiracy.
The secret geometry turned out to be the golden section.
Of all the proportional systems and use today,
the golden section,
also called the golden rectangle and golden mean,
are the oldest and most utilized.
Every design student learns about it.
It's not really a secret,
but it is magical.
The golden section may have been used
as early as the Egyptian pyramids.
The ancient Greeks, however,
are credited as discovering the proportion.
They admired it for its beauty and mathematical perfection.
This proportion can mathematically reproduce itself
as many times as one wants.
All these rectangles are the same proportion.
By connecting the points, a spiral emerges
that can go on to infinity.
The golden section is based on the Fibonacci Sequence,
a simple mathematical formula
that is extraordinarily common in nature.
The spiral connecting the points
is found in galaxies,
shells, plants,
and weather,
even the proportion of the human face.
The Greeks applied the golden section proportion
on their classical architecture and sculpture.
The Parthenon is a great example of this
and it has many golden rectangles.
Leonardo da Vinci utilized the form
to frame and articulate the Mona Lisa
and many of his paintings.
Notre Dame is a series of golden rectangles.
And today,
many examples of modernist architecture use the proportion
as a guiding tool.
The Farnsworth House, by Mies Van der Rohe,
uses the golden section repeatedly
on the house's elevation and interiors.
But what does the Mona Lisa have to do with your layout?
Using the golden section
is a simple and easy way
to define a pleasing composition.
Let's look at a poster
and how I apply the golden section
to define the space.
I might have composed the beach sky and surf boards
with a simple centered approach.
It's perfectly acceptable,
but lacks tension.
By applying the golden section as a guide for placement,
I shift the scale and position of the elements
to the lineup with a diagram.
Even a lowly cargo manifest form is deserving of beauty.
When I overlay the golden section,
it is clear how precise this layout is.
The golden section doesn't need
to be a static guide on the page.
It can be used in any direction.
It can be rotated.
You can use it as a guide
for scale and placement of an image.
There is even a way to set up name badges
with proportions that help people read a name
without squinting at someone's chest,
that's always awkward.
Don't be worried about the math.
Nobody will ask you to compute the ratio mathematically.
Think of the golden section as a helpful guide.
It may be called sacred hidden geometry
in the Da Vinci Code,
but it's not really that serious.
It rarely involves carter chases in Rome.