Please…for the love of my sanity. I’ve researched this topic relatively extensively and I just feel more and more stupid. I understand the rule of thirds. I understand the compounding numbers or whatever. However, a majority of the time I see the sequence imposed onto an image, all I can think is “okay, but…how? There’s nothing really significant about where that’s placed.”
Example: (poor example because I can kind of see how this makes some sense, but still)
https://imgs.classicfm.com/images/25767?crop=16_9&width=660&relax=1&signature=zaV1b3MFv0hIC0a41oGLG3CvQ7I=
Is it really just that it’s more busy in the “center” and it gets exponentially less busy? Am I overthinking it? Am I an idiot? What’s with the spiral? Is it just demonstrating the direction of the exponentiating, or does it have to do with the spacing of the colors or shapes on the image?
In: Mathematics
Designer here.
We use it to divide layouts into sections that are “pleasing” to the eye. It’s used in architecture as well. A lot of things in nature grow in a similar system – so it feels familiar and “makes sense” to our brain. It’s a rough layout guide, sometimes it helps to section the information we try to convey in a way that’s easy to absorb. SOMETIMES.
Most of the time people pflaster it randomly over images without any thought. Like the Mona Lisa one. You would apply it over the whole layout, not just the section that fits your needs.
If people have to explain their image looks good/correct because they used the curve they are doing it wrong.
tl;dr Makes sense sometimes, mostly used completely wrong.
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