iCloud Logo Infused With Golden Ratio

Thursday June 16, 2011 11:52 am PDT by Jordan Golson

Apple's logo artists have infused the iCloud logo with some mathematical elegance. In this case, the golden ratio or φ.

The circles in the 'puffs' of the iCloud are sized in a ratio of 1:1.6, an approximation of golden ratio, as discovered by Australian designer Alan van Roemburg. It seems unlikely the proportion was unintentional; Apple's artists simply have an acute sense of the history of design and mathematics.

The golden ratio has been around since at least Euclid and Pythagoras. Fans of the Da Vinci Code should know it too, as Dan Brown has referenced φ several times in his books. No wonder iCloud seems so elegant and aesthetically pleasing.

Hat tip to John Gruber

Update: The original source of the image appears to have been Takamasa Matsumoto.

Top Rated Comments

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emaja

Posted: 25 months ago

So, how long before Apple gets sued by these Euclid and Pythagoras guys - whoever they are - for using their proprietary ratios?

...and yes, this is a poor attempt at humor.

Rating: 10 Positives

Sodner

Posted: 25 months ago

I noticed this right away when I originally saw the iCould icon. :rolleyes:

Rating: 5 Positives

Hellhammer

Posted: 25 months ago

I highly doubt this was intentional. They probably created a set of circles, copied and pasted them, rotated them, and there's your 'golden' ratio.

Giving them too much credit.

You would be surprised to see how widely the Golden Ratio is used.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmaVqkR0ZXg&feature=related

Rating: 5 Positives

nagromme

Posted: 25 months ago

Giving them too much credit. They don't care about the minor details that much.

Image (http://i.imgur.com/74B5Z.png3)

I agree with that -- but you'd also be surprised how widely the Golden Ratio is used, unintentionally :)

Exactly. The mystique of the Golden Ratio is fun, but reality is more boring :)

I know the iCloud post was just for fun, so I’m not slamming it. But as a matter of interest: the Golden Ratio has NOT been intentionally used by great artists through history. You can find something “close” to that ratio in any image if you look for it. It’s like finding faces in clouds (no pun).

You could pick ANY ratio, say, 11-to-17, and find something very close to it somewhere in just about any image.

In modern times, the ratio is better-known and some certainly do use it. Apple may have too... but it’s a little off (thanks, stewart) and given that it was designed on a computer, I think the golden ratio in the logo is nothing intentional.

Read Mario Livio’s book, The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi. And you won’t be disappointed: for every myth about The Golden Ratio that he dismantles on solid historical research, there’s some other thing you never knew about the number that’s even cooler, AND true. (Like the ways that numbers related to it appear in nature.)

Rating: 4 Positives

Consultant

Posted: 25 months ago

This is by far the Best MacRumors article ever!

Except that Alan (June 15) is not the one who discovered it (http://stam-design-stam.blogspot.com/2011/06/icloud.html) (on June 9). Alan seems to be intentionally shady too.

Explained in the second part of the article: http://obamapacman.com/2011/06/icloud-logo-designed-with-triple-golden-ratio/

After iCloud was announced, I found their icon to be eerily similar to the CloudApp that's been on the app store for quite awhile..the only difference is one additional circle on the left. getcloudapp.com/[/URL] hasn't anyone else noticed this?

MobileMe was established before getcloudapp.

It's like that MobileMe had the icon before this other company did.

Rating: 4 Positives

stewart715

Posted: 25 months ago

Giving them too much credit. They don't care about the minor details that much.