My design for this project is inspired by the work of a 20th century graphic designer named Josef Muller Brockmann. Though his individual works are not well known, he is most often recognized as the founder of grid systems, around which he based his designs. He was fascinated by the number .618, which goes by many names including PHI and the golden ratio. This number has intrigued mathematicians and artists alike for centuries, as it frequently shows up in the natural world. Brockmann felt that the best designs were laid out on a grid that harnessed this ratio in its use. He felt that not only did it create order out of chaos, but because the ratio was so commonly seen in nature, use of it created a composition that was aesthetically pleasing and that just felt right to a human viewer.
Starting out, I understood the concept, but had no idea what I would do with it. I just decided to dive in and see what would happen. I started by grabbing a sheet of piece of letter size paper, a ruler, a calculator, a compass, and a pencil. First I calculated what .618% of 8.5 inches was, found that point on the paper, and then drew a vertical line through that point. (Figure 1) I had read that if you now drew a diagonal line from corner to corner, that you would find the .618 point for the horizontal, so that was my next step. I didn’t really have any direction at this point, so I decided to repeat the process in the upper left rectangle and see what happened. (Figure 2) The result surprised me. I now had a small rectangle placed exactly in the center of my composition. I also realized that I had a perfectly symmetrical grid. On a whim, I grabbed my compass and drew a circle that was exactly the radius of the width of the small rectangle in the center.(Figure 4) I realized that the point where the circle crossed the diagonal line I’d drawn in step one, looked surprisingly like the same ratio, so I measured it and used the calculator. It was! There was something to this number after all.
From there I just let creativity take over. I used the ruler and compass to draw circles, lines, and rectangles; my only goal to create a symmetrical, though abstract design. After a while, I started to pencil in light and dark areas, and then erase lines from other areas to let one shape flow into the other. When I was satisfied, I traced over everything with a felt-tip pen and colored in the areas I wanted darkened. The result was an abstract design that demonstrates Brockman’s use of grid systems.
Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3