Golden ratio

The proportion 1 to 1.618, where the whole relates to the larger part as the larger part relates to the smaller. Old, seductive, and only sometimes the answer.

The ratio's charm is its self-similarity: divide by it and the same relationship recurs inside itself, which is why it turns up in rectangles, scales and compositions that feel effortlessly resolved. Centuries of design have leaned on it, sometimes measuring, often merely invoking.

Our position is respectful scepticism: it is one good ratio among several, not a master key, and retrofitting golden spirals onto finished work is numerology. Where it earns its keep is generative, as the step of a type scale or the split of a layout, chosen because that particular boldness suits, and then obeyed.