The Golden Ratio
It's everywhere you look. Another one of those subconscious principles that seems hardwired into people.
It originally comes from the Greek mathematics and was later expanded upon by Pythagoras and & Leonardo da Vinci.
It's basically a 60/40 rule.
And guess what! You can you it in your house to make it look better!
Here are some ways:
Amount of furniture in a room
To balance the layout of furniture in a room you want about 60% of the floor space to be covered with furniture and 40% to be open. More than 60% furnished will start to feel cramped and less than 60% will feel underfurnished/unfinished.
Proportion/sizing of furniture in relation to other pieces
A coffee table should be about 60% of the size of the sofa it serves. On that coffee table (because a table is primarily supposed to be clear) it should be about 40% decorated with items and 60% open.
If a sofa takes up 60% of the seating in a room, the accent chairs should make up the remaining 40%.
In a dining room, 60% of that space should be furnished with table and chairs, right? So within that furnished 60%, 60% should be taken up by table and 40% by chairs! Starting to see how this works?
Bed/headboard: Bed 60% / Headboard 40%
Color in a room
If you are doing 2 colors, the dominant color in a room should take up 60% of the painted area. The secondary color would take up 40%.
If you want to do 3 colors, it's 60/30/10 and the 10 is usually a decorative accent and not not. You can see it here: 60 beige, 30 teal, 10 red
Rugs & Art
I think it's helpful to think of rugs as Art on the floor. It's 2D color with a border.
So with a large rug, you'd do something that's 60% of the size of the floor it lays on. For a large painting, you'd do a painting that's 60% of the wall it hangs on.
Small rug/small painting would be about 40% size of their designated surface.
You will find if you start playing around with this stuff that you can go as deep as you want to go. Whether it is designing a large city, or the surface of a hand-painted tile, it's there and always applies.
STAN
This guy, Tristan Detwiler, created a small company that makes one of a kind clothing out of vintage textiles & quilts. Such cool stuff!
But also super simple idea. He started 4 years ago, doing something nobody else did, built an instagram and now has an amazing business.
This was not really a thing you could do 10 years ago, at least not at this scale.
I am a big Naval Ravikant fan, and one of the lines in his famous tweetstorm that resonated the most with me was:
"The Internet has massively broadened the possible space of careers. Most people haven't figured this out yet."
If you have a good idea, and are willing to beat the drum online everyday, it can become your career. I'm running this same playbook.
Modern Icon Art of Ivanka Demchuk
You find the most amazing stuff on Etsy.
I love people like Ivanka who create an aesthetic the is totally unique to them. That's really what I'm after.
I love religious art and have never seen anything else quite like this. Otherworldly is a good word for it.
