Integrating Design Mathematics In Large Posters

Mathematics and art have long been concepts that go hand in hand in making beautiful things. When it comes to poster printing, you can use mathematics to create wonderful and well proportioned art for large posters. Do not worry though, it is not that complicated and you do not even need a master’s degree in anything to pull it off. In this article I will guide you in the two important mathematical concepts that you can integrate into your poster printing designs.

Using the power of Phi: First we have “Phi”. It is a Greek letter, but it also represents what has come to be known as the golden ratio or divine ratio. The exact value of this ratio is “1.61803....” but for your purposes we will round it off to just 1.62. This ratio is said to be aesthetically pleasing and in fact can be found naturally in terms of the ratios of stem segments in plants, skeletal systems in animals and even the geometric patterns in crystals.

Now, this may all sound complicated at first but applying it to your large posters should be easy. To do this, you will only need to know some multiplication. Now, for example you want a large poster to have a fixed height or width of about 12 inches (or about 30.48 centimeters). To get the proper length of the other dimension (height or width) you can multiply the value by the golden ratio. Using metric for proper mathematics, 30.48 multiplied by 1.62 we get 49.38 roughly. So give or take a few points in centimeters, the best dimension for your large poster should be 30.5 by 49 centimeters or around12 by 19 inches. Using this dimension should produce an aesthetically pleasing dimension that is perfect for your large posters. Try it out and you should never go wrong. It is mathematically natural.

The rule of thirds: Now, this next one is easier. It is called the rule of thirds and it can be applied to photographs and images. This concept basically means that you have to divide your poster design into three distinct parts vertically and three distinct parts vertically. You can do this by just drawing two equally spaced imaginary lines vertically in your poster, and doing the same thing horizontally. With that grid setup, you should have a set of nine squares in your poster.

Now, the technique of the rule of thirds is that you should put all the important elements in your poster design in the intersection of these guide lines or just along them. The premise is that people usually focus on these line locations when they first see an image of a poster. The proportions for your design will be aesthetically pleasing to the eye, and it functions as a good guide on where to place any important design elements you want to emphasize. You will be making very effective posters when you do this.

So why do not you try these things out? It never hurts to have a little mathematics on the side to help you with your designs.


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