Golden Ratio Calipers : Neon Colours

Nick Taylor - Golden Mean Calipers - New Zealand

Https://goldenmeancalipers.com

The Golden Ratio is a mathematical constant that frequently appears in nature and in the proportions of the human body.

For several thousand years it has been used consciously in art and architecture, and today is widely used by dentists, cosmetic surgeons... and farriers, as well as artists and designers. It is a very small but weirdly broad niche. People who shoe horses use the same tool as people who make violins.

The Golden Ratio is an approximation - and your own artistic instincts should always take priority. If you are creating something yourself, it is often a really good center-of-gravity to work towards because (for reasons unknown) it conveys a sense of artistic or aesthetic balance. In a high-stakes environment (eg: cosmetic surgery) it is a good solid and easily measurable ideal to aim for.

The Ancient Greeks were famously keen on it, but it also shows up in the Taj Mahal in India, The Alhambra in (Moorish) Spain, The Pyramids in Giza in Egypt... and Viking-era Scandinavia... everywhere.

The Lewis Chessmen - seemingly originating (not without controversy) from Trondheim, Norway in the 12th Century. Possibly a fusion of Viking and Roman styles... a hoard of 78 of them was found in 1831 on a beach in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. 

A face that is an averaged composite of two other faces, which are then mirrored.

I created this a while back to demonstrate how the golden ratio relates to the human face... albeit an artificially idealized one. It is easily the most successful thing I have ever made in my life in terms of how often it has been copied and adapted - thousands and thousands and thousands of times, but in a way which has been of no use to me whatsoever

Here is the original image with new lines.

The calipers measure the golden ratio - the ratio of the distances between the tips is always 1 : 1.618.

They are made from laser-cut stainless steel in New Zealand... tumble-polished for two days... assembled, polished some more, and sent all over the world.

I designed the first ones about 8 years ago when playing with Ponoko.com

I had become fascinated by digital fabrication technology, and Ponoko offered not just a cutting service, but also an online shop to sell our creations... I made a bunch of things (a flying spaghetti monster, knuckle-dusters in the shape of flowers)... and then some golden ratio calipers. And someone bought them... so I made some more. And someone bought those ones too. So...

Initially the neon-case ones were made for a (spectacularly stylish) doctor  in Miami who wanted 40 in all the colours... they looked so amazing that we bought up as much of the acrylic that we could (which in New Zealand isn't a lot), and they're now available from our website here

http://goldenmeancalipers.com/product/small-golden-mean-calipers-neon-range/

They are made in Raumati, New Zealand... it's a small beach-community about 45 minutes drive north from Wellington (the capital)... a bit like Kiwi Portlandia by the sea - it is basically a wave of Gen-X refugees escaping from the impossible housing-costs of Wellington. Lots of artists and musicians and so on. Everyone seems to have a motorbike, and seems to play music, or exhibit art. Everyone always seems to be looking for work... only just getting by.

It's a mixture of tumble-down family bungalows from our grandparent's generation, and the encroaching weaponised architecture of gentrification... slowly driving everyone North. We're probably all going to wind up in Whanganui, back to my parent's basement.

My name is Nick Taylor,

The company is called "Golden Mean Calipers", but we also brew moonshine, make motor-bike parts, and do various odd-jobs for the locals. Grant sometimes brings his parrot to work.

I've been making calipers for about 8 years now... before that I was a Web Dev (am now in recovery), and before that a harrowingly unsuccessful rock-star in the UK. My band (The Wild Poppies) finally got a record deal 30 years after we had split up and moved back to New Zealand.

I became interesting in digital fabrication-technology after the crash of 2008 saw me moving back in with my parents at the tender age of 48. I actually ran this business for the first couple of years from their basement... a bit like a middle-aged Waynes World but with more laser-cutters.

I am fairly phobic about the pseudo-science aspects of the golden-ratio... mathematics is a far more interesting branch of magic in any case - it's like magic that actually works, and there's a lot to be said for that.

I first discovered The Golden Ratio as a 14 year old in Greece in about 1979 when my hippie parents took me and my brother out of school for a year to drive around Europe in a camper van.