Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by user____name 134 days ago
My favorite genre of graphic design is when you take a logo and work backwards to show the "very deeply thought about" construction, completely made up after the fact. The golden ratio is useful in that with a bit of fiddling you can fit pretty much anything to it. This is like catnip for "spiritual" types.
2 comments

Now I'm imagining an app that automatically back-engineers a 'golden ratio' analysis or similar bullshit explanation for you to save you the time and trouble of making it up yourself. Being able to give fussy clients an instant graphic design placebo would be super useful.

In a way it's anthropologically (and linguistically) interesting that such a bigram can gain this kind of status as a result of marketing, essentially. Probably having 'gold' in there helps. Maybe the app could have optional modes for completely new magic numbers:

- The Platinum Proportion - The Gilded Fraction - The Silver Symmetry - The Coveted Correspondence

See also

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2322:_ISO_Paper_S...

European paper sizes are based on a sqrt(2) spiral so cutting in half works well.

What’s the context?
Oh, it's a mostly nonsense (IMO) document that a design contractor did for a new Pepsi logo. I don't really know much about it but it gets posted on HN frequently when someone makes fun of designers. I dunno if it leaked or what, but here's a reddit thread about it: https://www.reddit.com/r/Design/comments/hspqgd/pepsi_logo_r... . I'd bet the GP post of this had their opinion formed at least in part by this document.