As you can see from the above image, I have been fascinated all over again by the "Golden Section", ratio, or proportion, or Phi, or whatever you want to call it. I have one of the lovely little "Wooden Books" about it by Scott Olson, simply entitled "The Golden Section, nature's greatest secret"
Even although, sadly, I am not one of nature's gifted mathematicians, I find this book awe-inspiring. It is definitely one of those books which reminds you that life is too amazing to be random or coincidental. Incidentally, Phi is 1.61803398874989.... If you wish to find out more about it, you can do so here, and see how this ratio crops up everywhere - in the proportions of the human body, botany, DNA, the solar system, art and architecture etc etc.
Anyway, one of the diagrams in the book shows how in medieval times the golden ratio was used to govern the page layout of some of the beautiful illuminated manuscripts. (The first image shows my attempt at drawing this diagram). This inspired me to make a several sets of simple pamphlet style notebooks, sized according to the golden proportion.
The first thing I noticed after making them, was that they are both taller and slimmer than the format I am used to in the UK, based on the A4,A5, and A6 sizes - and yet somehow they look pleasing and just "right". Needless to say the first set of 3, I made were Golden and measured 13 x 21 cm - note the Fibonacci numbers!
After that, I went on to make a black set, then a green one and a red one and I don't think I am done with them yet. Sometimes it just helps to feel that there is an overall creative design in the world that you can be part of, even if it is in a very small way.
P.S. No mathematical queries please :-)
This is a GREAT post - love the concept and love the results! You know Hokusai's "Wave"? Is that based on the golden section too? I was just using it yesterday to illustrate some teaching
I'm looking forward to seeing the other notebooks in the other colours too but I do like the gold!
Bob
xxx
Posted by: Bob | November 30, 2008 at 11:09 AM
Glad you enjoyed the post Bob. Actually it seems that Hokusai's wave is based on geometrical form of the Golden Section - you can find out about it in this link: pakmm175.blogspot.com/2007/04/golden-ratio-is-relationship-that-sum.html. Fascinating isn't it?
Posted by: Hilary | November 30, 2008 at 11:26 AM
I share this obsession...
www.3x5life.com
www.notebookstories.com
Posted by: Notebook Stories | December 17, 2008 at 08:07 PM