Studio Brief 3: Canons of Page Construction

Canons are systems, methods or approaches to a particular practice. In relation to Graphic Design it refers to the ways of organising type and image on a page.

Canons can be helpful in your practice especially when designing publications layout, however, they can also encourage complacency. It is our job to study canons of page construction while also maintaining criticality

The Golden Ratio

The Golden Ratio is a harmonious  mathematical proportion that has been used and studied in mathematics and the arts since Euclid (Ancient Greece). Pacioli coin the term 'Devine Proportion'.

It is often credited as being able to delivery aesthetically pleasing and harmonious composition due to its repetitive and natural sequence. The sequence can also be found in nature

The golden ratio is as follows:

a to b = 1:1.618

a + b to a = 1:1.618

How to do it

100cm x 1.618 =161.80cm

100cm/  1.618 =61.80cm

100cm= 61.80cm + 38.20cm

The ratio of 61.80cm to 38.20cm is 1:1.618

The Fibbonacci spiral is created by using this sequence to make squares that are 1:1.618 scale to each other.

Some people use the fibbonnaci ratio in logo design to create a harmonic design. It was claimed that the apple logo did this but it is not true and forces the spiral on the design when it was not originally intended.

Some designs were designed specifically with the ratio in mind as seen below.

The BP logo uses a variation of the ratio that is commonly seen in nature on flowers and fruit.

The amount of spirals going each way is always a number in the fibbonacci sequence. 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34...etc

The is explained in this video well.

 The spiral can also be used in photographic composition as seen in the examples below to again create a harmonic layout with the photo...

...Although this is just a more complicated version of the rule of thirds. It is believed we like 3rds and numbers in the fibonnacci sequence because they are more natural. A photo split into halves is too mathematical to create a harmonic composition.

 The Spiral has also been used in web design layout and can often be used to dictate where the viewers eye is lead.

 We began drawing out our own fibonnacci sequence in the commonly seen square sequence as seen below to understand how it works.

I looked at ways that the sequence can be used alternatively with the scale of shapes.

I then split creates a grid from sequential numbers that could then be used for page layouts.

 Here is a Ted Talk video that goes into more details about the sequence and it's applications.

Van De Graaf canon

J.A. Van De Graaf was a 19th century ducth scholar of book design. He observed a system of page layout used in page layout design since Gutenberg and even in some early Medievil script.

This leaves you with an area that can be used for body text.

Raul Rosarivo adapted this canon into a 9 column grid.

Jan Tschichold adopted a similar approach influence by Gutenberg layouts. In studying these layouts Tschichold deduced that in order for these canons to work harmoniously the page ratio must be 2:3.

There was much discussion as to if all of these rules,canons and ratios were needed or useful. In my opinion they are all interesting and worth experimenting with as they are proven theories. This is to say that thy are not to be used in every single piece of design.