I've been a designer in other fields for a while. I have always wanted to try my hand at auto design. In starting out (being a total newbie) I did some investigation in proportion systems that apply to auto design and came across something interesting. When I superimposed the golden rectangle over some venerated favorites I found them thick with golden rectangle proportions. I'll post some examples below. Is this a widely held design principle that everyone in the field knows or a coincidence?
I am in the middle of a design exercise. The rectangle and it's relation to sports car was part of the early stages. I am considering a muscle car idea I was going to have a look at the rectangle and venerated muscle cars. I have noticed that in the new corvette the passenger cab has moved forward a bit moving the door line and back pillar closer to the divide of the golden rectangle. I think this has improved the proportions of the car. your sense of the "front" part of the car and the "back" part of the car. The new design feels more balanced to me. It look more sure footed sort of.
I am interested in seeing how the rectangle related to more car types. If I have more overlays antime soon I'll post them.
I once overlayed what seemed like dozens of golden ratios (1:1.618) on a Ferrari Enzo. That thing is the posterchild of phi! Unfortunately, I deleted the file a while ago while making space on my computer.
If you look on the aforementioned website, it shows various ways in which phi applies to nature and humans. I think it is just natural that we want our cars to echo that ratio. It will make them look more pleasing to us because we see the ratio so often in the world around us without noticing it. phi in human beauty
You can find phi by doing this equation: 5^.5*.5+.5=phi
Theres a lot of talk at the moment about secret formulae behind the universe and the golden section in Da Vinci and Jesus having kids. The last one is obviously bogus as he was camp as Christ-mas, but for the first two rather than superimposing spirals over everything ever and reading amazing made-up stuff, why not read amazing real stuff? Go on Amazon and buy some Chaos maths and Information Theory for Idiots books. They are full of mindtwisting explanations for the way time and space work and the characterisation is a lot better than crappy Dan Brown.
Dan Brown and jesus? dude cars! The golden rectangle is an venerated proportion system used by artist and designers sence the renaissance. It appears that car design have a good bit of it in them. For me the qestion stated before is the critical one. Do the designers of todays cars use it intentionally or does it end up in the designs of any seasoned designer having a developed eye for balence.
If one of the pininfarina guys stoped by this thead, what would they say? hmm?
The balance of research seems to suggest objects with golden-section proportions are more aesthetically pleasing, although its not clear whether this is due to some natural phenomenon or influenced by its presence in other famous products. Theres a more in-depth discussion Universal Rules of Design also on Amazon. You can impose spirals over any image you find if you wish; several trendy students have done golden mean based projects and theyre all ugly as Dan Brown. But wouldnt you prefer to know why objects in nature appear to display fractal characteristics?
Ya i guess it was a greek deal. the fractal thing is also interesting I'll have to do some digging. Do you think the heavies in the major design studios use the rectangle? Is it a system they use? Does anyone know? You seem to think using it is stupid which is fine.
which again brings us around to the question posed above. is it intentional or coincidental?
Socrates told me that the whole deal came when he had to halve A3 paper for his A4 printer and realised he could go on and make A5, A6, A7... and it all had the same ratio. His mate Plato (no, not big-nose off Low Gear) came round and and said "Dude, let it go." They went down the pub and ridiculed the Fibonaci sequence as they were setting up the pool balls. Then some fit godesses in mini-togas entered and the conversation went downhill from there.
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