"The Golden Mean" is the name we were taught by professors from Pratt
and Cooper Union back in the 60's and while he didn't invent the
ratio, the master matmetician Leonardo Pisano (aka. Fibonacci)
calculated and recorded the formula. In the 70's I worked with an
artist named Richard Botto on a corporate design team... Dick's true
love was oil painting and the integration of the Golden Mean in his
work. He has since become well known in the art field as perhaps one
of the best equine artists in the country, and many refer to him as
the painter of champions. Not all, but many of his works follow the
golden mean, and he used to actually analyze many elements within his
paintings to utilize the formula. Dick re-introduced the Golden Mean
to me and I can't tell you how many times I've used it in designing
graphics projects. The ratio makes for a very "comfortable" shape and
this has been proven over and over by various institutions and
organizations.

It may be inadvertent or intentional, but have you noticed that
today's new HDTVs are _almost_ dead-on with the Golden Mean? Old TVs
are 4:3 ratio and the HDTVs are 16:9... change that to 1618:1 and
you'd have the "perfect" picture.

Mike



On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 10:33:40 -0800, Gino wrote:


I would love to see a discussion of this.
When designing things like garden gates and arbors, even fence panels and window
placement I often create stuff that doesn't look quite right, other times it
looks great.

I understand to concept sorta, of the golden rectangle but what about other
shapes like rounded top gates, ovals, etc.

Examples.
I make one gate it looks great another looks a little off, but I really can't
see why.
I make a lattice frame arbor and it looks terrific, change the size and shape of
the 'holes' or the boards and it looks awkward, clunky.