Golden Section was acknowledged as one of the most beautiful ratios in Art and Architecture. It was recognized into the best artworks of Western Civilization.
Employing the Golden Ratio in the Graphic and Web Design is considered a good practice. In today’s tutorial, I will show how to construct Golden Ratio on the paper and inside Adobe Illustrator. Into the third part of this workshop I am going to simplify a process of Golden Ratio transformation to the single click by using actions in Adobe Illustrator.
What is Golden Section
The Golden Section rectangle is a ratio of the Divine Proportion. The Divine Proportion is derived from the division of a line segment into two segments such that the ratio of the whole segment, (a+b), to the longer part, a, is the same as the ratio of the longer part, a, to the shorter part, b. This gives a ratio of approximately 1.61803 to 1, which can also be expressed
(1+√5)/2.
Golden Section Rectangle on Paper
Step 01. A Square
Draw a square.
Step 02. A Median
Draw a diagonal from the midpoint A of one of the sides to an opposite corner B.
Step 03. An Arc
This diagonal becomes the radius of an Arc Z that extends beyond the square to C. The smaller rectangle and the square become a Golden Section Rectangle.
Step 04. Subdivisions
The Golden Section Rectangle can be subdivided. When subdivided the rectangle produces a smaller proportional Golden Section Rectangle which is the reciprocal, and a square area remains after subdivision. This square area can also be called a Gnomon.
Step 05. Continue
The process of subdivision can endlessly continue, again and again, producing smaller proportional rectangles and squares
Golden Ratio in Adobe Illustrator
There are several ways how you can transform objects by Divine Poportion. You can use a Scale Tool dialog box, Transform Panel on top of your Workplace or with the live Transform Effect.
Please note: all of our tranformations rely on arithmetic functions inside Adobe Illustrator. We will use forward slash
/to divide and aterisk*to multiply.
First Step. Create a Shape
Firstly, we need to create any shape and keep it selected, so we can apply all tranformations the shape.
Golden Section With the Scale Tool
Head over to the Scale Tool
on the Tools Panel and double click on the icon to open the dialog box. Place a cursor in the Uniform Field right after 100% value and type forward slash followed by 1.618. Click Tab to proceed the calculation and Ok or Copy to apply changes.
Golden Section With the Transform Panel
Transform Panel is a essential part of the Control Panel. To bring up the Control Panel head over to the Window>Control. Navigate to the Width and Height values towards the shape and type forward slash with and Divine Proportion (1.618). Click Tab to apply changes. This method doesn’t allow us to create a duplicate though.
Golden Section With the Live Transform Effect
First step is to head over to the Effect>Distort and Tranform>Transform… . In Opened Dialog box divide both Width and Height by the value of Divine Proportion (phi as it is also called in math). In order to do this, type / and 1.618 after the value of 100% in each field (see the step 2 in the picture below). Click Tab to proceed calculations and set a number of copies before clicking if you need them.
Although this method is the most it requires one additional steps in order to convert the Live Effect into the group of regular vector shapes. So do not forget to visit Object>Expand Appearance to expand Live Effect.
Golden Section With the a Single Click
Fow those of you, who want to take the most from the Golden Ratio in Adobe Illustrator, I have a good news. Allows me to present a free Golden Ration Action, that helps you to size up and size down objects by Divine Proportion with a single click.
Installation of Golden Mean Action
To install it bring up an Action Panel by going to the Window>Actions. Locate the Humburger Menu at the top-right corner of the panel. In opened dropdown menu select the “Load Actions..”
Select the file and enjoy! Now you can click the Play Button at the bottom of the Action panel and forget about the phi number.
And to further simplify and streamline the process you can assign a Functional Key through the Actions Options dialog box.
First thing first, select either Size Down or Size Up action. Head on to the Humburger Menu again and this time choose Actions Options.
In the opened dialog box set you functional key. Now you key fire up the transformation on a keypress:
That’s all for to day, feel free to share this article and check this tutorial to practice your Golden Ratio skills.
