Applying Mathematics To Web Design

“Mathematics is beautiful.” This may sound absurd to people who wince at numbers and equations. But some of the most beautiful things in nature and our universe exhibit mathematical properties, from the smallest seashell to the biggest whirlpool galaxies. In fact, one of the greatest ancient philosophers, Aristotle, said: “The mathematical sciences particularly exhibit order, symmetry and limitation; and these are the greatest forms of the beautiful.”

Because of its beautiful nature, mathematics has been a part of art and architectural design for ages. But it has not been exploited much for website design. This is probably because many of us regard mathematics as being antithetical to creativity. On the contrary, mathematics can be a tool to produce creative designs. That said, you don’t have to rely on math for every design. The point is that you should regard it as your friend, not a foe. For illustrative purposes, we created a couple of web designs that present mathematical principles discussed in this article. We are also giving away a couple of PSDs that you can use right away in your next design.

Layouts featured in this post were created specifically for the purpose of this article. During the design process we made sure that all of the designs shown in this article are essentially mathematical in nature; that is, they exhibit order, symmetry and limitation. We also have followed the Web design algorithm in this process — the designs have distinct themes, styles and elements. To keep things simple and clear, we tried to stick to minimalist designs and also preferred single-page layouts. Obviously, examples in this article are supposed to serve as a simple foundation for your designs and not as the finished designs.