Design Basics Series: Proportion

The principles of interior design are guidelines to the various ways you can arrange design elements (line, shape & form, colour, texture & pattern, light) and they can help you create the house of your dreams.

The principles of interior design are:

• Proportion
• Scale
• Balance
• Harmony
• Unity & variety
• Rhythm
• Emphasis

Proportion

Proportion is the relationship of one part to another, or to the whole, or between one objects and another.

You can define proportion in terms of magnitude (size), quantity, or degree.

The size of an object is influenced by the relative sizes of other objects in its environment, and by the environment itself. So for example, a tiny picture on a large wall looks lost, while a large one – or a cluster of small ones – looks well-proportioned.

Here’s a series of furniture that differs significantly in its proportion:

Through the years, mathematicians developed several methods to determine the ideal proportion of things. The most familiar proportioning system is the golden section, devised by the ancient Greeks.

The golden section states that given two parts, one smaller and one larger, the ratio between the smaller part and the larger part must be the same as the ratio between the larger part and the whole.

The Fibonacci series is a progression of whole numbers where each number is the sum of the preceding two (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21…). The ratio between two consecutive numbers approximates the golden section.  You can create a pleasing, harmonious tiling with squares whose sides are successive Fibonacci numbers in length; if you connect the opposite corners of those squares, you get a spiral.

Since the Renaissance, several artists, architects and designers have used the golden section as a reference – think Leonardo da Vinci, for example, or Le Corbusier. The golden section is present in nature, too – just have a look at this short yet amazing video to see a few wonderful examples.

A proportioning system can be a useful tool for a harmonious composition, but interiors are three-dimensional, not flat like a painting or a photograph. Also keep in mind that our perception of things is often imprecise: viewing distance, the foreshortening of perspective, and even cultural backgrounds can influence the way we perceive our environment, and affect proportion.

When designing a room,  you need to look at the proportional relationships between:

• the parts of a design element (i.e. a piece of furniture);
• several design elements (i.e. an arrangement of furniture);
• elements and its enclosure (i.e. furniture and interior that contains it).

In general, when you sense that there’s neither too little nor too much of an element or characteristic in a room, and the interior looks harmonious, it means that you’ve achieved proportion.

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In the next post of the Design Basics series I’ll talk about scale and how it can be used in interior design. If you liked this article, please leave a comment, and share the link with others. To receive your free updates and make sure you don’t miss any post, subscribe to Positively Beauty here.

Images source: 1 – AtCasa; 2, 9 – Cristina Colli; 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 – Cassina;  8  – Moroso

Tagged as: design basics, interior design, Interior Design - Tips