On trawling the internet for comments about the iOS icon grid and the golden ratio, I saw some comments about Apple not using its own grid. These comments come from overlaying the iOS icon grid on top of the icons and not seeing a correlation. 

iOS 7 Icon Grid
iOS Icon Grid

However, what most people don’t realise is, it’s not the icon grid that icons need to correlate with. It’s the proportions, e.g., the golden ratio that is used in the grid’s construction that provides the correlation.

The iOS Weather Icon and the Golden Ratio

Golden Ratio

At the heart of the iOS icon grid is the golden ratio and the square root of two. It is these proportions and a few others, e.g., the square root of three that unify Apple’s icons. Consequently, to harmonise your icon’s design elements with Apple’s icons, you can use any proportional grid that shares these ratios.

Icon Design

In the book ‘Icon Design’, I’ll introduce you to a set of related proportional grids. I’ll show you how to build these grids. I’ll also show you how you can incorporate the golden and related ratios into your work.

None of the proportional grids in ‘Icon Design’ are new; they are in the public domain and have been around for hundreds of years.

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