Good designers are always on the hunt for the latest tools to help them step up their game—whether it’s a new app or the latest Adobe update. Yet some of the best design tools are actually those that have been around the longest.

The golden ratio is a prime example. This phenomenon has always been a part of nature, appearing on plants, animals, and even people’s faces. In the Middle Ages, a mathematician named Fibonacci finally discovered the sequence of numbers that lead to the golden ratio—which is 1:1.618.

Artists began using the ratio in their work, because they found its balanced proportions aesthetically pleasing. It even appears in masterpieces like DaVinci’s Mona Lisa and Dali’s Sacrament of the Last Supper.

Today’s artists aren’t painters—they’re graphic designers. But the golden ratio may actually be even more useful for design than painting. It helps you size and crop images or design pleasing logos. You can even use it to lay out a website or solve issues with typography placement and sizing.

Learning how to put the golden ratio to work for you can be a little complicated at first, especially if you’ve never placed a golden spiral on a design before. This helpful guide, courtesy of Company Folders, will teach you everything you need to know about the golden ratio.

Source: http://www.companyfolders.com/blog/golden-ratio-design-examples#graphic