Aesthetics Are Funny Things

This morning I was writing up patterns for the contractors I'm about to bring on board to my business to make my products. One of the things I'm going to have them do is the scrubbing sides for my best-selling soap holders. As part of the pattern I provide guidelines as to how much the contractor's gauge can vary from mine, so I have to measure the scrubbing side to give them a target size.

And that's when I realized why it is that the large size soap holders have sold far and away better than the regular size. The aspect ratio of the large size soap holders is much closer to the Golden Ratio than the regular size holders' aspect ratio. I put them out side by side at the Winter Gift Market, asking the same price, and people chose the large size much more often than the regular size.

There are other factors, of course-- for starters, the larger size will hold a wider variety of sizes of bars-- but the large size sacks' sales have outstripped regular sacks' sales by such a margin that it cannot be explained solely by their versatility. I'm inclined to think it has a whole lot to do with the aspect ratio. People just like Golden Rectangles better than other rectangles.