Typeface with golden proportions

[Miguel Sousa]

This topic was imported from the Typophile platform

Can anyone name a typeface that follows the golden section proportions?

Thanks in advance.

[Miss Tiffany]

Off the top of my head, I can't name any digital faces that follow the golden section. However, Luca Pacioli, Geofroy Tory and Albrecht D

[Stephen Coles]

Not sure if they are golden prop material but here are some D

[nike]

I'm not sure, but somewhere I read that Corporate ASF based on the golden section proportions.

[Joe Pemberton]

Download a free D

[John Hudson]

Back when ITC released their Bodoni, their U&lc magazine ran a feature on what various type designers thought made a typeface 'timeless' (or was it 'classic'). I recall that Carol Twombly mentioned that the golden section had a tendency to pop up all over many of the typefaces that we consider classic. An obvious place to start looking is in the proportion of x-height to ascender or cap height.

I don't think Carol made it clear whether this frequent occurence of the golden section in type design was due to intention or simply to a good designer's natural feel for pleasing proportions.

[jfp]

seems also that Zapf used the golden section for his Optima or Melior (more on his book: HZ, his design philosophy)?

[kentlew]

I have a little booklet from Underware which shows a diagram of Dolly's proportions and explains that

"De x-hoogte verhoudt zich tot de stokhoogte als de Gulden Snede; a : b = b : (a+b)."

I don't know a stitch of Dutch, but I'm guessing a rough translation would be "The relation of the x-height to the ascenders in the Golden Mean." Which, upon measuring, indeed it is -- approximately 1.618. The relation to the descender is not quite f, being only 1.6.

-- K.

[martin_gagnon]

there is a very interesting article (pdf) related to this subject: Cahier GUTenberg 37-38

Herman Zapf Typographie des caract

[Miguel Sousa]

Want to thank everyone's help. It was precious!

Btw Romesh is right! I found on the page 344 of the german book Wo der Buchstabe das Wort f

[titi]

On Fibonacci see

http://www.textism.com/bucket/fib.html

[martin_gagnon]

If anybody is interested I have written an applescript that allow polygonal shape to be scale up or down in the (leonardo da pisa) fibonaci serie.

It works with illustrator 10 in osX, in the past I have used it to define the thickness of some initial and logo...

It can also be use to build different successive generations of whorled shapes: fibonnacci whorl, whorled pentagon, etc.

Inside the script 1+sqrt5/2 = phi can be easily change to root 2, 3 or 5 series:

http://www3.telus.net/~martinga/goldensection.sit

and if you find the subject fascinating like i do then those 2 books are very enlighting:

from a mathematical mind: gnomon, from pharaohs to fractals (princeton)

from a designer mind: geometry of design (princeton)