General notice
Design is not always about being creative and visualizing what comes to mind. Creating a visual – a logo in our today’s case – a designer takes into account a lot of technical data, like the proportions of the entire logo, and the elements comprising it.
For example, the control value in this logo is the height of the letters (x). From that, the overall width of the logo is 4 times longer than the x (4x). With half an X clear space on the sides.
What Gingersauce’s platform offers?
If you go into the app and import a logo, you will get to the step where the system asks you what proportion principles you were using when building a logo, and will offer 4 models to choose from.
Why does this exist in the system?
- To help the designer explain to the client why the logo is great based on the good proportions of it, meaning it’s appealing to the human eye.
- To help the designer explain the thought process behind the logo design, how it was built.
- To offer the guidelines of the ratios for the future designers working with the logo elements.
- To help the designer create a family of branding elements like icons, for instance, as in the future they will be following the same ratios.
How does it work?
We uploaded a logo.
You can see that the system has calculated the ratio of the logo. In this particular case, it offers us to choose between 2 methods: Leonardo (chosen automatically), and Michelangelo.
Leonardo vs Michelangelo Proportion Systems
In Leonardo, the short side of the logo is taken as a control value (x). Then the system calculated that the width of the logo will be 5.3 times bigger than the height (5.3x).
This system is naturally better to use if you want to take the short side as a control point. Choose Leonardo if you want to point out what is the proportion of all logo elements (clear space, internal elements, etc) to the short side of the logo.
Note: Consider Leonardo setting as a default one; best used by beginner designers who didn’t have any particular proportion in mind, while working on a logo.
In Michelangelo, the long side of the logo is taken as a control value (x) (width in wide logos, height in tall logos). The height of the logo is 5.3 times smaller than the width.
This system is naturally better to use if you want to take the long side as a control point. Choose Michelangelo if you want to point out what is the proportion of all logo elements (clear space, internal elements, etc) to the long side of the logo.
Fibonacci Proportion System
If you’ve been designing a logo according to Fibonacci’s sequence, or simply subconsciously designed one like that you can pick a Fibonacci Method in the app.
Fibonacci’s sequence is as follows: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55 etc’. Each number after the first two in the sequence is the sum of the 2 numbers before it.
The progression of numbers form a visual pattern that looks like this:
If you connect every corner of the pattern you will receive something called the Golden spiral.
Basically, everything in nature is built according to the Golden spiral and a ratio.
The Golden Ratio is the relationship between two quantities where the ratio of the small quantity (a) to the large quantity (b) is the same as the ratio of the large (b) to the whole (a+b). This number is called Phi and equals 1.618.
The human body, flower petals, and even galaxies are built according to that law. On the subconscious level, humans perceive anything created with such a ratio as more beautiful and harmonic. There is a reason it has been used for centuries in arts, architecture, and sculpture.
If you choose the Fibonacci method in the app, it will provide you another benefit for your logo presentation.
Calculated in Gingersauce, the ratio serves as proof that your visuals are based on the generally accepted law allowing the design to become more appealing and memorable in the eyes of the beholder.
This way you’ll instill more confidence in your professionalism, and build a more meaningful relationship with your client.
Vitruvius Proportion System
This is our secret Joker, an Easter egg if you will. This function reveals itself only if a specific logo gets uploaded. Will you find out how it works? Send your assumptions to [email protected] 😎
The Bottom Line
To recap:
- The models are used to show what ratio calculations were behind your logos.
- Leonardo: the short side of the logo is used to measure the proportions of the logo elements. We recommend using this system if you didn’t have any particular proportion in mind on the designing stage.
- Michelangelo: the long side of the logo is used to measure the proportions of the logo elements.
- Fibonacci is for logos designed according to Fibonacci’s sequence.
If you don’t want to go too much into the technicalities behind the models, you can simply choose whichever works best for you and makes more sense visually. The step will still do its job.
As you go into the text editing mode, you can also add more comments under the ratio calculations, for example manually add the proportions of other logo elements (the automatic calculation of the logo elements is coming soon).
