Grids & Divine Proportions

The Fibonacci Sequence ration 8:13 links in with the golden rule, section and rectangle. All of which are the same thing, the sequence is not only found within design but life and nature it's self.

A great place to find the sequence is within flowers, the amount of spirals they have within their seeds, or the spirals in the petals more or less every time is equal to a number from within the Fibonacci sequence.

So how is this useful within design and how can I use it? Well It's a great way to create perfect proportions, or aesthetically pleasing proportions. It can be easily found within the Mona Lisa by Da Vinci. 

The recurring numbers from the sequence can be put to use when it comes to using proportions within type, If you're title is 55 a great size to compliment this would be 34 body copy as it's the number behind in the sequence. Another example could be Using 13 point with 21 Sub-header and a 34 point title.

It's hard to create a spiral but once you figure it out it's easy to repeat, you start with 1 + 1 squares, then the whole of them equals the next square (2), to get the 3 you take the whole of the 2 ones and the 2 together to get the 3 and repeat around in a spiral.

This spiral can be then used to create proportioned grid spacing, a great example of this can be found on Twitter, you can easily see the boxes where the spiral inlays. This is a great way to organise the information on the page easily. As well as this It can be useful when it comes to composition of images.

As well as the Fibonacci sequence is the Golden Section as previously mentioned, this is another ratio used to create aesthetically pleasing proportions. This is a great ration to use to quickly split up a page.

To do this you use the golden number and divide by the length you are wanting to section. So for the example below, If you had a page of 56cm and you divided it by 1.62 you would get 34.56 (rounded to 35) this would split the page up into 21cm and 35cm. With the 21cm rectangle you can then divide it and do the same to that. You would eventually create a page layout with an effective way of laying out information and in a hierarchy.

An example I create here shows how it can be divided down into the sections by simply dividing by the golden number.

As well as both of the previous methods there also exists the Rule of Thirds, this can be mostly found within Photography commonly as a quick way to compose an image to create an aesthetically pleasing photograph.

It's used because where the lines intersect is where most often the eye is drawn to, because our eyes are lazy this is where they are drawn to, by placing the most important part of the composition here you will be drawn to it more easily and it'll stand out alot more. From a previous photograph I had taken before I cropped down to bring the focal point more in align to the middle of the 4 focal points in the image and It really helped improve it. 

This can be then applied to grids and layouts, where this can be found is in website design news site design, having the most valued information within the centre you are more likely drawn to it, the rule of thirds can be then broken down even more to help guide your eye around the other sections as well.