# Why Some Things Just Look Beautiful ## Метаданные - **Канал:** Design Theory - **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AofrZFwxt2Y ## Содержание ### [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AofrZFwxt2Y) Segment 1 (00:00 - 05:00) Your eyes lie to you. Watch these circles. They look like they're moving, but when I put a grid behind them, you'll see that they're actually perfectly still. When colors flash rapidly like this, your brain perceives motion. If a few blinking colors can fool you this easily, what else might you be wrong about? Disillusion is visual, but these distortions can happen in every part of your thinking. Your perception can be shaped in ways you don't even realize. For example, science claims that one of these curves is the most beautiful of all. Can you guess which one? I'll give you three seconds. It's this one. Statistically, most of you probably picked this one, but it's not really because of some measurable objective form of beauty. People think beauty and design follow universal rules like this so-called line of beauty. But the truth is a lot messier. And this really matters because beauty isn't just an abstract debate for philosophers or art critics. Our perception of beauty is a tool of influence. Whether it's selling something or changing what you believe, shaping your perception is a powerful form of manipulation. In this video, we'll look at where these rules of beauty came from and why they might not be as universal as you've been told. You'll also have a better understanding of how to define beauty for yourself. These visual tricks actually apply to real life, whether it's a graphic design layout or ancient monuments like the Parthonon. The Parthonon is a very unusual structure because it looks like a bunch of straight lines, but it's actually made up almost entirely of curves. The designers of the Parthonon knew that if the temple was made up of perfectly straight lines, it would look like the structure was sagging and it would feel too static. Every horizontal element of the temple curves outward and the pillars curve inward toward the center. Even the columns themselves are curved. They swell outward in the middle a tiny bit. The structure wouldn't look right if the designers hadn't done this. This image exaggerates the Parthonon's optical corrections so they're easier to see. In reality, the adjustments are much more subtle. Even the column spacing changes. These columns at the corners were spaced slightly closer together compared to the ones in the middle. Designers understand how to create something that just feels right. Even if the measurements don't add up, they know that your brain tries to make sense of what it sees in very strange ways. So, let's go back and see how this applies to the line of beauty and if this really is the most beautiful curve. In the 1750s, William Hogarth decided that these serpentine lines were the most beautiful because of the way they led the eye around in a continuous almost figure 8 manner. What's weird is that Hogarth didn't really have any reason behind why this was the most beautiful curve. He just kind of decided it was true and no one really questioned it. His opinion ended up influencing art, design, sculpture, calligraphy, and even landscaping for several centuries. Now, I don't think he was completely wrong. S- curves can definitely be a great compositional tool. What I don't get is why he insisted that this specific line was the most beautiful. This is right around the time the BS alarms in my brain started going off. And it gets weirder. About 150 years later, American painter Henry Poor linked the line of beauty to the ideal curve of a woman's lower back. But here's the crazy part. Henry Poor actually changed the shape of the supposedly perfect line of beauty to make it match his vision of the perfect butt. If we overlay Hogarth's line of beauty on top of Por's line of beauty, they're not even the same curve. And a century after that, scientists found that Por's new line of beauty matched the optimal lumbar curve of a woman's lower back. This butt is supposedly the evolutionary ideal for pregnancy because it helps shift a woman's center of gravity back over her hips while she's pregnant. It reduces strain while bending over to forage for food. The idea is that we liked this curve because it signaled fertility. Now, at this point, I was really skeptical. I don't think these studies tell us much about aesthetics. What they do reveal is that if you give a man a research grant and a vague interest in beauty, he'll find a way to study women's butts. Here's the truth from a designer's perspective. Let's first address the obvious. Women's butts are three-dimensional, and the line of beauty is 2D. This is where the whole idea of a perfect curve falls apart. We live in three dimensions, not on a flat piece of paper. If I rotate the curve even slightly, it's a different shape. And if you sneak a quick look at a woman's backside, emphasis on quick, you little creep. The shape of that curve depends entirely on posture, motion, and your point of view. It's never static. When people compare the line of beauty to the curve of the ideal woman's lower back, which version are we talking about? Is she standing straight? What's happening with the lighting? What happens when she turns her body slightly? That curve is changing constantly? Trying to assign a universal rule to something that literally shifts with every movement is impossible. Car designers dedicate every waking moment of their lives to understanding how compound curves interact in 3D space. When some guy rolls in and says, "Oh yeah, just use this line of beauty," it undermines the rigorous training that so many professional designers go through. ### [5:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AofrZFwxt2Y&t=300s) Segment 2 (05:00 - 10:00) Making something look beautiful from one angle is difficult enough. But making something look beautiful from every angle in 3D space is almost impossible. If beauty were as simple as following a few rules, we wouldn't have so many ugly cars on the road. I have some car designer friends and you'll see them crouch down and bob their head up and down like some kind of weird owl. It looks really strange, but they're literally watching how reality bends across a curved fender. But this still doesn't address one important fact. In one experiment from a few years ago, it was found that the line of beauty was in fact the most beautiful according to people pled. I ran the same poll in my Discord. It's not exactly peer-reviewed, but sure enough, the line of beauty came out on top by a pretty wide margin. People consistently picked it as the most beautiful curve, just like in the published study. Let's figure out what's going on here. There's one thing I've learned in my design career. It's that beauty isn't hardwired. It's shaped by context, familiarity, and sneaky little psychological tricks that designers use all the time. I'll show you one trick after a word from our sponsor, Anyesk. If you're a designer, creative, or editor working across multiple devices, Anyesk might be the best tool you're not using yet. I've been integrating it into my workflow and it's kind of a gamecher. With Anyesk, I can remotely access my editing rig from my laptop. The connection is so fast and responsive, it feels like I'm right there in my office and it works on Windows, Mac OS, and all these other platforms. And because Anyes uses a proprietary codec, the image quality stays sharp even in remote areas or on spotty Wi-Fi. Audio passrough means I can scrub and edit YouTube videos remotely. And thanks to 99. 98% uptime, I know I can rely on it. The direct file transfers are also really useful. No more cloud uploading, no more waiting to sync. I can move raw footage, project files, whatever I need, straight from device to device instantly and securely. If your workflow lives across many devices or locations, Anyesk brings it all together seamlessly. It's free for personal use, and if you've got a team, they offer tailored business plans. Thanks to Anyesk for sponsoring this video. Download any desk for free today using my link in the description. Back to the video. Here's a quick test. Pick one of these circles. Odds are you pick the one in the middle for two reasons. First of all, it's blue, but that's another video topic for another day. Second, and more importantly, it's in the center. We're drawn to things that feel balanced. This same effect showed up in Pokémon Go. Players were asked to join a team, and the blue team was shown in the middle, and it ended up being way more popular than the other two teams. It could have been because of the bird or the color blue or the lore, but another major factor, it was the middle option. This is called centrality bias. It's why most people pick the medium coffee or the middle option for pricing. It's not necessarily the best option, but it feels like the most balanced, familiar one. It's also part of the reason why important information is often along the center line of the page for many graphic design layouts. So, what if this line of beauty keeps winning? Not because it's the most beautiful, but because it's always shown in the middle. It's not too flat, it's not too bent, it's just right. It's the Goldilocks curve. I tried this again with a new set of curves and moved the line of beauty to the right. It still got some votes, but it went from like the clear top choice by far to the third choice. And some of these curves in the middle were way at the edge of the first test where they barely got any votes. But once I moved them to the middle, they suddenly got chosen way more often. That centrality bias, it's just one of literally dozens of little psychological tricks that designers use to change your preferences. Composition is another important factor. As some commenters pointed out, when all the curves are on screen at once, the spacing between them actually affects how you perceive each one. Remember the parthonon? It's full of subtle curves and asymmetries, but we perceive it as perfectly straight and harmonious because of the way the elements relate to each other. When it comes to aesthetics and proportions, all judgments of beauty are contextual. It's much more about the comparison and relationships than it is about looking at a random curve in isolation. The context changes the content. And it goes way beyond psychological tricks, too. Knowledge changes your perception. Here's a simple example. This line on its own doesn't mean much, but if you turn it into a stock chart, anyone who bought that stock here is going to think that line is more beautiful than the Mona Lisa. The famous designer Raymond Loey is known for saying, "The most beautiful curve is a rising sales graph. " Here's another example. These Arabic letter forms sweeping across the page have a sort of beauty to them. But if you're able to actually read Arabic, it will completely change your perception. This is what it says in English, by the way. Now that you know what the letters mean, your perception changes. Knowledge and understanding profoundly impact the way we interpret beauty and meaning. In the late 1800s, impressionist painters completely violated the rules of traditional academic painting and instead focused on artistic self-expression. Critics called ### [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AofrZFwxt2Y&t=600s) Segment 3 (10:00 - 15:00) their work sloppy and unfinished, basically the painting equivalent of bad handwriting. The state sponsored art exhibitions in France often banned impressionists from showcasing their work. But now these exact same paintings are hanging in the most prestigious museums in the world. The human brain hasn't evolved or changed since the late 1800s. Our collective perception is what changed. We now understand why these paintings were so special, and we have a new appreciation for the skill it took to make them. The more you understand what something means, the more it can change your perception of it. But what about designs that are considered timeless? They must be following some universal standard of beauty, right? Not really. In the west, timeless design is usually just mid 20th century corporate modernism. After the horrors of World War II, the idea was that using sand serif type and elemental forms was a universal language that would bring unity to all humankind. Yes, they actually believed this. Modernist design was a serious attempt to create a universal timeless style. The brutal irony is that this style is instantly recognized as being from a very specific time period and culture. 50 years from now, this aesthetic will signal 20th and early 21st century European design just as clearly as Victorian ornamentation signals the 1800s. It's really not timeless at all. This style sold itself as neutral and apolitical, but in reality, it served post-war corporate expansion. Shandigar is an Indian city based on European modernist design principles. But the massive concrete structures and wide open spaces feel alienating and sterile. And because the buildings are all made of concrete, they absorb the harsh Indian sun all day and never really cool off. And by separating residential areas from commercial areas, shopkeepers have to commute from their house to their work as opposed to just having their house above their shop, which was really common in India. While I do think Shandigar is interesting, this type of supposedly timeless design just didn't make much sense in India, especially for that particular time period. And that's the danger of forcing a false idea of universal timeless beauty. It can erase cultures and leave places worse than before. I'm not saying that modernism is always bad. All I'm saying is that when it comes to timeless beauty, context really matters. I'm going to do a whole video on timeless design, so be sure to subscribe for that. But anyway, there must be parts of beauty we're sure are universal no matter what the culture, right? For example, humans are biologically hardwired to detect symmetry within less than 12th of a second. Symmetry is so ingrained in our biology that all mammals and possibly even all vertebbrates are neurologically equipped to detect it. We're so fast at detecting symmetry that our brain sees it before we're even consciously aware of it. What's even more strange is that we as humans may have a biological impulse to make tools that are symmetrical. These Asholian hand axes are hundreds of thousands of years old. There is no functional reason to make these axes as symmetrical as they are. Some researchers think that early humans made them symmetrical simply because they look more beautiful that way, but it's impossible to know for sure. This seems to be a uniquely human inclination. Other prehuman ancestors and even chimpanzees made hand tools, but they didn't sculpt them to be more symmetrical than what was functionally necessary. This extends beyond tools. Scientists claim that symmetry also greatly informs our concept of beauty when it comes to human faces. These researchers say that humans are genetically hardwired to see symmetrical faces as more beautiful. And this preference for facial symmetry transcends culture. No matter what the ethnic group and no matter what the age, symmetry is preferred. So, is our concept of beauty informed by our biologically driven appreciation of symmetry? Maybe, but it's hard to say how much this genetic inclination affects it. Symmetry is probably a factor, but it's definitely not the only factor. First of all, whether our love of symmetry translates to objects and not just faces is very debatable, but surely faces that are symmetrical are always more attractive, right? That's what the science says. But there are always exceptions. Just look at Ryan Gosling. He's a sex symbol. But look closely and you'll see his face is very asymmetrical. You can see especially with his eyes. And look at what happens when we cover each half of his face. One side of his face says hyper masculine bond villain plotting world domination. And the other side looks kind of like a friendly elementary school art teacher. If you mirror his face so it's symmetrical, you end up with two completely different people. There might still be hope for the rest of us with weird asymmetrical faces. Now, I think Ryan Gosling's asymmetry works in his favor. One side is super rugged, the other is friendly guy next door. Given his movie star status, many people clearly find this tension very alluring, although being a fantastic actor does help. Beauty isn't just about ticking off biological boxes like symmetry. It's more about hitting the equilibrium or ### [15:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AofrZFwxt2Y&t=900s) Segment 4 (15:00 - 20:00) balance. And the concept of balance shifts wildly depending on the context. Going back to the parthonon, it wasn't built with perfect geometric balance. It was built to look perfectly balanced to the human eye, which is a completely different thing. So when humans find something that feels beautiful, we have this weird compulsion to turn it into a rule of the universe. We try to come up with one magic number, one curve, one proportion. We've shown how this can be very misleading, but there's one set of supposed rules of beauty that are particularly absurd. It's created an entire cottage industry of people drawing rectangles and spirals over everything from the Mona Lisa to corporate logos, insisting that it's all part of some ancient cosmic code. And if you've ever heard someone say, "Well, of course it's beautiful. It follows the golden ratio. " Well, buckle up cuz I'm going to ruin that for you. Okay, so this one is so completely over the top insane that I don't even know where to start. But basically, the golden ratio, the Fibonacci sequence, the golden spiral are all connected in a way that I barely care enough to explain. Essentially, the ratio of a golden rectangle's long side to its short side is about 1. 618, repeating infinitely. If you put another golden rectangle here, then another here, over and over again, you eventually can draw a curve to each intersecting edge to create what is called the golden spiral. And there are a bunch of other fun things you can do with this ratio, too. This proportion and spiral is sometimes found in nature and it was first studied by the ancient Greeks. It didn't get a fancy rebrand as the golden ratio until thousands of years later in the 1800s and over the years it sort of achieved this reputation of being found all throughout nature and the rest of the universe. It was even renamed the divine proportion at one point. It's viewed as this universal key to achieving beauty and balance. I found an Instagram reel that kind of encapsulates everything wrong with how people understand the golden ratio and sacred geometry in general. This reel ends with a sales pitch to sign up for a course for something. And there's nothing wrong with trying to make money or sell something. But doing so in a way that ignores the concrete facts of reality is harmful for everyone as long as there are gaps in our knowledge. There will be people making up answers because it gives them power and influence or they just think it sounds cool even if it isn't actually true. So let's go through the real — sacred geometry is often dismissed as just a mystical concept, but it's the mathematical language of the universe. Ancient civilizations knew this. The pyramids, temples, even nature itself. Spirals, hexagons, fractals, all built on this divine proportion. — Just a quick note, please do not harass this person. Don't leave mean comments on her videos. Let's just talk about the ideas here. So anyway, you'll hear people say the golden ratio is hidden in everything, but it's actually very easy to disprove all of this. Let's take a look at the classic nautilus shell example. Surely the most commonly cited example must match the golden ratio, right? Nope. It's not the same spiral. Let's try a galaxy spiral. Nope. How about a hurricane? Nope. These are all logarithmic spirals, but they aren't golden spirals. Most of the other examples she mentioned don't really work either. In fact, I don't think any of them do. Maybe one or two. The thing is, you can fit a golden ratio rectangle in pretty much anything if you try hard enough. And it's important to remember that the golden ratio is a very specific number. It's not 1. 6. It's not 1. 5. It's not 1. 62. It's 1. 618 with a bunch of endlessly repeating decimals after that. Now, it is true that the ratio does sometimes appear in nature. Seed patterns and sunflowers follow the golden spiral, for example, but its significance is extremely overexaggerated. Let's see what else our favorite woowoo influencer has to say. — Neuroscientific studies have shown that certain geometric patterns found in nature and architecture can induce data brainwave states. The same frequency linked to deep meditation, intuition, creativity, and altered states of consciousness. — This one is especially annoying because I know she didn't even bother to read the study that she's citing. Luckily, I did. The paper says that certain primitive shapes made of certain materials might have an electromagnetic resonance that's aligned with theta wave frequencies found in the brain. But we don't even know how or if those resonant frequencies affect us. And the whole thing was done in a computer simulation. They never actually built any structures and tested it on humans. Whether any of this has an effect on people's moods is completely speculative. If you actually want to design a space that changes how people feel, you don't need mystical geometry. You just need the stuff architects and designers already use every day with real observable results. Things like lighting, materials, furniture choice, interior layout, colors, architectural style. These are things that actually can affect your mood. Also, the study she cites says that deep meditation, intuition, and creativity all happen at different brainwave frequencies. They're not all ### [20:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AofrZFwxt2Y&t=1200s) Segment 5 (20:00 - 24:00) magically tuned to the same cosmic signal like she's claiming. — Ancient cultures harness sacred geometry in their architecture and their art, not for aesthetic, but to align with the cosmos inherent order. By embedding these patterns into their surroundings, they facilitated spiritual experiences in connection to the cosmos. — This one is just false. You see people overlaying spirals and rectangles on top of things that clearly don't line up. It has no connection to the cosmos. It wasn't even called the golden ratio or the divine proportion until the last couple hundred years, way before these ancient structures were created. You hear people say the parthonon was designed around the golden spiral or the golden ratio. But the parthonon isn't even close. As we already discussed earlier, the columns and details were all different lengths. But even forgetting all that, you can literally just overlay the golden rectangle on a photo and see it doesn't fit. There's a reason why all the lines are so thick in those diagrams. By the way, they're hiding the fact that it doesn't quite match up. This goes on and on. There are just endless examples. Pretty much every example she shows is not even using the golden ratio. What's crazy is that there are thousands of Instagram reels, Tik Tok videos, and websites talking about this. The level of collective misinformation on the subject is absolutely insane to me. And I can kind of forgive some random person on Instagram for making these bogus claims. But what's really crazy is the way even respected professors and scientists with published papers will confidently spread nonsense about this whole thing. They cite several examples where the golden ratio is found in art and nature which we've already mentioned isn't true. I found this in an academic paper though like have some standards guys. Now look, I've made similar mistakes on YouTube. I don't get everything right all the time, but this is just taking things too far. Looking at this study about the golden ratio found in puffer fish nests, the way they measure the circles seems completely arbitrary. Like, where is the actual edge here? The other peaks don't even follow a golden ratio, just those two. And even then, most of them aren't even the golden ratio according to their own measurements. So many seemingly credible sources make wild claims in order to stretch the truth and prioritize shallow but flashy research that sounds cool, but isn't actually true. Honestly, the fact that a little fish built these structures is incredible. You don't need to arbitrarily inject the golden ratio into it to make it special. That's why I don't really understand this fascination with it. Why do we need there to be one proportion to explain everything? Why isn't nature amazing and all inspiring enough on its own? Why do we need to ascribe some weird laws of the universe thing to it all? There's no need to ascribe a hidden proportion in order for something to be beautiful. You can just appreciate beauty with your own eyes. Design rules are good as a starting point, but as you refine your sensibilities, they become less and less relevant. There are so many designs that deliberately violate so-called best practices, just like the impressionist painters of the 19th century. If these rules are about visual comfort and predictability, then breaking them is about tension. It's the visual equivalent of dissonance in music. It makes you lean in, and that can be a good thing. It's important to remember that pretty much every revolutionary artistic or design movement was about breaking the rules of the past. There's incredible value in trying to achieve beauty. The fact that it's so hard to define is honestly what makes it so special. A single perfect rule leads to everything converging on the same look, erasing cultural differences and experimentation. I was talking to my friend Anthony about this and he was saying that design exists in a living culture. Good designers ask, "What is beautiful in this moment of living time? " They tap into their technical prowess, their cultural understanding, their personal expression, and find ways to make it relevant to the current moment. There absolutely is a line of beauty, but that line shifts with the people and the culture. It lives and moves within all of us. These videos take hundreds of hours to make. I read a thousand plus pages of articles and books. I talk to industry experts. and I reflect on my 15 years of experience in the design industry. If you like these videos and you want to help build a place where design and culture is discussed with depth and honesty, then consider supporting me on Patreon. You can sign up for a few dollars a month, and as a show of thanks, you get early access to my videos, plus a behind-the-scenes commentary video. My plan is to slowly transition to a more audience-funded model for this channel. That way, we can talk about the things that you care about. I want to give a huge shout out to my patrons on Patreon right now. I sincerely appreciate your support. I couldn't do this without you. I hope you learned something and have a great --- *Источник: https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/32935*