Did the golden rectangle originate in Africa?

2021-06-10T18:05:00-04:00

In Africa, design practices tend to focus on bottom-up growth and organic, fractal forms. They are created in a sort of feedback loop, what computer scientists call “recursion.” You start with a basic shape and then divide it into smaller versions of itself, so that the subdivisions are embedded in the original shape. What emerges is called a “self-similar” pattern, because the whole can be found in the parts.

"Design remains a largely white profession, with Black people still vastly underrepresented – making up just 3% of the design industry.
This dilemma isn’t new. For decades, the field’s whiteness has been recognized as a problem, and was being openly discussed as far back as the late 1980s, when the few Black graphic design students preparing to enter the profession spoke of feeling isolated and rudderless.

Part of the lack of representation might have had to do with the fact that prevailing tenets of design seemed to hew closely to Western traditions, with purported origins in Ancient Greece and the schools out of Germany, Russia and the Netherlands deemed paragons of the field. A “Black aesthetic” has seemed to be altogether absent.
But what if a uniquely African aesthetic has been deeply embedded in Western design all along?"

The Golden Ratio: Relevant or not?

2015-06-01T13:05:00-04:00

It's bullshit. The golden ratio's aesthetic bona fides are an urban legend, a myth, a design unicorn. Many designers don't use it, and if they do, they vastly discount its importance. There's also no science to really back it up. Those who believe the golden ratio is the hidden math behind beauty are falling for a 150-year-old scam.

Do designers ever follow the Golden Ratio? Is it even relevant in architecture? FastCo.Design writer John Brownlee voices his perspective on the old myth.

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Did the golden rectangle originate in Africa?

The Golden Ratio: Relevant or not?