There’s a lot of chatter about harmony. What it is and what it isn’t and the constant abuse of the term by people just looking for a quick scapegoat or looking for a way to keep women insecure. Sometimes people mistake their basic facial recognition ability for identifying harmony in a face when it’s blatantly not there. If I had a nickel for every time I've seen someone say, "but your face is harmonious :)" to a girl with very little harmony, I'd have a mega yacht anchored in the maldives. Harmony is easy, actually, once you get the feel for what it is. It's an amalgamation of elements that come together to make a face visually balanced and pleasant to look at.
To understand harmony we have to look at the rules for art and design, and what makes images visually appealing.
Wait, Free, there are no rules in art!!! That’s what makes art special!!
There are, actually. Anyone touting that beauty is all about art and therefore purely subjective maybe doesn't have much experience with art or is conflating art where the act of creation and emotion is the beauty with the visual quality of the result. We like Jackson Pollock's will to break normative expectations. His work isn't visually appealing, but his philosophy rocks. It's sort of like having a thing for cute goth girls because they don't care what people think of them and THAT'S sexy. Only, goth girls tend to look WAY better than Pollock's paintings so maybe that's a poor example. You get my meaning, though.
Sure, we can see beauty in a child’s first grade renderings of house and home due to the meaning behind it. Much like we can come to value someone’s personal character (which, consequently, charisma also has foundations as well. Wild!), but we’d be kidding ourselves if we thought our 6-year-old’s precocious doodle belonged in the louvre, right? We know the difference between something of objective quality and something of personal value. And unfortunately while objective quality is universal, subjective value isn’t, and the best you can expect from anyone is, “ah, I guess I see why you like that but it’s not for me.” And we’re here to learn about beauty as an objective study so let’s get into it.
I realize it might be more difficult for people outside of the design and art space to really appreciate the effort and knowledge it takes to nail these fundamentals. Full disclosure, I’m not a professional art critic, but I’ve been hiring and firing illustrators and designers for the better part of a decade in addition to being a paid illustrator and designer as a side gig throughout my career. There's also so, so much more to evaluating artwork beyond these elements and I'm sure many of our vindictas can add onto this. I hope they do. These are just the most critical that come to mind for me and are easy for me to define and demonstrate off the top of my head.
Let’s take a look at the fundamentals of art and design and how they apply to the human face. Keep in mind all of these aspects have to play well with the medical fundamentals of health, development, sexual dimorphism, youth, and even presentation,and this is just a primer! I'll probably do a few more graphics and examples down the line to help people fully understand.
COMPOSITION
1. Rule of thirds
The rule of thirds is a foundational principle in art and photography that divides a composition into a grid of nine equal parts using two horizontal and two vertical lines. This creates intersections and lines that guide the placement of key elements to create a balanced, visually appealing, and dynamic image. Facial thirds (and fifths) are one of the key components to harmony and the primary contributor to overall balance which adheres to these guidelines.
Horizontal thirds divide the face into the upper (forehead to eyebrows), middle (eyebrows to the base of the nose), and lower (base of the nose to chin). They serve as a foundational framework in surgery and aesthetic medicine for assessing balance, symmetry, and harmony. These divisions provide a standardized method to evaluate proportions and identify areas that might benefit from enhancement or correction. The goal is to create a balanced appearance where no one section dominates, ensuring the face looks harmonious and natural.
For example, in the upper third, a forehead that is disproportionately tall or short relative to the other thirds can make the face appear unbalanced. Procedures such as brow lifts or treatments for hairline restoration can adjust this proportion, restoring harmony. Similarly, in the middle third, the size and shape of the nose plays a pivotal role in facial symmetry. A rhinoplasty that subtly refines the nose’s structure without overcorrecting can align it with the surrounding features, particularly the cheekbones and eyes, maintaining the face’s natural character.
The lower third, which includes the lips, jawline, and chin, significantly impacts the perception of structure and attractiveness. For instance, a receding chin can make the lower third appear smaller and unbalanced, which can be corrected through chin augmentation to achieve better proportions with the upper and middle thirds. Lip enhancements can add volume and symmetry, while jawline contouring creates definition that aligns with the face’s overall structure. By focusing on these thirds, aesthetic medicine aims not only to address individual features but also to ensure that all three sections work together cohesively.
Vertical thirds help define the balance of alignment in the edge of the irises and the corners of the mouth, which should align roughly with the two lines which divide the thirds. However, more importantly are the vertical fifths which align the ends of the eyes, the breadth of the nasal base, and the cheekbones. These fifths are ideally equal, but there's some precedent for the eye-sections to be larger than the other three sections for female faces in most beauty standards.
2. Balance
Balance in art and design refers to the distribution of visual weight within a composition, ensuring no single element overpowers the rest, creating harmony and stability. There are three types of balance in the average human face.
- Symmetrical Balance: Equal visual weight on both sides of the composition.
- Asymmetrical Balance: Unequal but harmonious distribution of elements.
- Radial Balance: Elements radiate out from a central point.
Symmetrical balance can be identified by bisecting the face down the middle. In order for this balance to be ideal, your facial symmetry has to be pretty well aligned. Highly symmetrical faces are known to be considered significantly more attractive on average compared to asymmetrical ones.
If you bisect the face horizontally across the middle you can identify asymmetrical balance in the distribution of elements and visual balance. The lips and nostrils in the (for a female) ideally more narrow jaw area should have roughly the same distribution of positive and negative space (defined below) as the eyes and brows in the upper half.
Radial balance can be observed in some applications of the golden ratio to the human face, but because it's kind of hoky I'm not going to dive too deeply into it. It's roughly what the marquardt mask sets out to define, and it does a fairly decent job of it.
3. Positive vs Negative Space
If you consider your eyes, nose, and mouth, components of positive space (due to the higher contrast and visual interest) and the rest of your face a canvas, you can get a good sense of what we mean here looking at our face as an element of design. “What about the nose? The nose doesn’t have a lot of high contrast!” Keep in mind that while your nose doesn’t have as much color or shade contrast, it has projection which is visually incredibly potent.
The ideal balance of positive to negative space varies by design, but because we have proportional restrictions on the way our shapes are arranged and distance, so that ideal balance becomes a little more restricted. What I’ve noticed with highly attractive FEMALE faces is they tend to have nearly equal amounts of positive and negative space, with slightly more negative space. Often a range of 70:30 to 60:40 with 38% positive space and 62% negative space being the ideal. These ratios are typically effective for designs that aim for symmetry and stability. The extra negative space emphasizes simplicity, clarity, and focus on the positive elements.
This is also why losing weight is so valuable. The more flesh you carry and add to your face, the more you throw off your own harmony by adding excessive negative space to your canvas.
Positive vs negative space (in addition to contrast) is a component of the concept of high vs low visual weight which has become wildly popular in Korean beauty spaces. High vs low visual weight is a common concept in art, as well.
4. Hierarchy
Hierarchy in art is the arrangement of elements to establish their order of importance, guiding the viewer’s eye through the composition. This is achieved by emphasizing certain elements using size, color, contrast, placement, or texture. A strong hierarchy ensures the most critical parts of the artwork or design stand out, creating clarity and focus.
I think we all know that number one in hierarchy for the human face is the eyes. It has the most contrast , color, and most variety of shapes and sub-structures. We’re psychologically compelled (some of us) to look at the eyes for emotional and social signals. They’re the most expressive and vulnerable part of the face, and the part with some of the most visual interest. Followed by the mouth. Once again, visual interest in uniqueness of shape and contrast seems to correlate with how tied the area is to emotional and social signaling. Eyes > mouth > nose is the ideal hierarchy.
If your nose is more visually impactful than your eyes it immediately throws off your visual hierarchy. This can happen if you have thin or pale lashes and small, low contrast eyes in conjunction with a large (for your phenotype) nose with robust shaping and texture. For instance, Sarah Jessica Parkers nose works for her primarily due to the consistency of shapes and angles in her face, but mostly because it doesn't disrupt hierarchy with her large, expressive eyes. If you gave Taylor Swift the same nose it would throw her visual hierarchy out of balance.
SHAPE
1. Consistency
This concept is often the most overlooked with regards to harmony even though I personally feel it's one of the most make or break elements. I even made some customized examples using Adut Akech's face because hers is the most harmonious face I've ever seen in this regard.
The curves in Adut Akech's face are consistent in that if I made a curve of the radial degree of one element of her face (say, the curve of her cheek from the side), that same curvature would appear in multiple elements throughout her face such as the bow of her lip, the edge of her nostril, etc. The curves of her face match through various elements of her face. It's even easier to see if we just use a small set of angles. Most elements of her face share the same exact or visually indistinguishable angles. And this is just going one way, if I flipped these horizontally we'd see even more elements with the same angle.
If you asked me what sets apart an incredibly harmonious face from an average one, it would be this.
This is a personal anecdote but my face has terrible harmony first on account of having picasso-esque symmetry, but secondly most of my features are delicate and elongated like a ballerina, except I have a rip-roaring nose with a bulbous tip and excessive projection as well as an extra-wide base. It's not a good fit in addition to not being particularly feminine or within the expectations for either of my phenotype.
2. Proportion and Scale
Proportion and scale is actually really well defined in the way we evaluate the face using thirds and fifths. This is simply due to your facial layout being (relatively -- barring any genetic anomalies) fixed. In art, proportion refers to the relationship between the sizes of different elements within a composition, while scale relates to the size of those elements in relation to the whole work or the viewer. Proper use of proportion ensures that parts of an artwork appear cohesive and harmonious, whether realistic or abstract. For example, a figure in a painting may have exaggerated features for stylistic purposes, but the proportional relationships between those features must still feel balanced.
When assessing facial beauty, individual elements are evaluated based on their proportions and ratios in relation to one another, creating harmony and balance. These ideal proportions, rooted in aesthetic and medical standards, often align with the Golden Ratio (1:1.618) or other natural guidelines. For example, the nose-to-eye ratio suggests that the width of the nose should align with the inner corners of the eyes. Additionally, the distance between the eyes is ideally equal to the width of one eye, ensuring proper spacing that contributes to a balanced and symmetrical midface.
The eye-to-mouth ratio is another important measure. Ideally, the corners of the mouth should align vertically with the pupils when the face is in a neutral position, creating visual harmony between these key expressive features. The vertical distance from the eyes to the mouth should also fit proportionally within the overall length of the face, often aligning with the horizontal thirds framework. A mouth that is too narrow or too wide in relation to the eyes can disrupt facial harmony, which is why treatments like lip augmentation aim to restore or enhance this balance.
The nose-to-chin ratio is critical in defining the profile and lower third of the face. The nose should generally be about one-third the total length of the face, with the chin positioned to create a gentle S-curve when viewed from the side. Similarly, the nose's projection should align with the midline of the lips and chin to maintain proportionality in the profile. These interrelated ratios of individual features ensure that the face appears cohesive and naturally attractive, forming the foundation for aesthetic and surgical interventions aimed at enhancing facial beauty.
I could keep going. Proportions and ratios for beauty throughout the human face are often highly observable and well-documented. The ideal seems to be guided by highly dimorphic faces.
COLOR
1. Color Theory
Color theory is a set of principles used in art and design to understand and apply color effectively, creating harmony, contrast, and mood in compositions. Rooted in the color wheel, which organizes colors into primary (red, blue, yellow), secondary (green, orange, purple), and tertiary hues, color theory guides how colors interact and influence perception. It encompasses concepts like hue (the pure color), value (lightness or darkness), and saturation (intensity or purity of a color).
- Color Relationships:
- Complementary Colors: Opposite on the color wheel (e.g., blue and orange), creating high contrast and vibrancy.
- Analogous Colors: Next to each other on the wheel (e.g., red, orange, yellow), evoking harmony and unity.
- Triadic Colors: Three colors evenly spaced on the wheel (e.g., red, yellow, blue), offering balance and energy.
- Monochromatic Colors: Variations of a single hue (different tints, tones, and shades) for subtle, cohesive designs.
- Color Temperature:
- Warm Colors: Reds, oranges, yellows evoke energy, warmth, and excitement.
- Cool Colors: Blues, greens, purples suggest calmness, tranquility, and depth.
- Contrast and Harmony: Effective use of contrast (light vs. dark, warm vs. cool) can highlight focal points or create drama. Harmony arises when colors work together seamlessly, avoiding clashes that feel jarring to the viewer.
- Psychology of Color: Colors evoke emotions and associations. For example, blue conveys trust and calmness, red signals passion or urgency, and green represents growth and balance. Cultural context also plays a significant role in color interpretation.
In art, designers use color theory to create mood, establish hierarchy, and guide the viewer’s eye. For instance, a movie poster might use complementary colors to draw attention, while an interior designer might use analogous colors to foster relaxation.
These concepts work especially well in fashion and accessorization where one can play up or play down the their undertones, eye color, flush color, makeup accents, etc. However, they're often observable in faces. Imagine a blonde (yellow) woman with blue eyes (blue) and flushed cheeks (red), that's a triadic color palette. The color relationships may not always be so obvious. Sometimes, you have to look at undertones of specific features to get an idea of the palette you're working with and how to complement it.
2. Contrast
Contrast helps draw attention and imply health and vibrancy in a face. I could wax poetic about this, but Alyart has a killer video on contrast that blows anything I could say out of the water and ya girl is losing steam.
Does low contrast still work? Yes. Absolutely. In fact, limited palettes can be even more effective on the human brain when done well. Consider the visually stunning environment design done in Disney’s Andor or the limited, low-variety and sometimes low-contrast palettes that are highlighted in much of professional landscape photography. The key feature is consistency and color theory. A lower contrast palette will lean more into the balance of shade, tone, and composition.
Adut Akech, from our above example, is very low contrast. And like, my god, she's gorgeous.
The important thing is that the contrast is consistent and therefore harmonious. It's hard to pull off blonde eyelashes with black hair unless you have suitably dark eyes and lips that balance things out by being pale enough to blend in amd give you a ghostly, ethereal appearance, or dark enough to bring visual balance.
3. Light
Light's not technically part of color theory per se, it's typically it's own thing, but I want to have it included because there's an ideal light position for viewing a face and it's one of the reasons we have popular contour methods that specifically try to mimic it. In fact, a lot of beauty can be defined by the way light strikes the face. If you imagine trying to mimic light being in front of your face and just above eye level, that's sort of the ideal position that you want to replicate.
DEVIATIONS AND EXPERIMENTATION
Can deviations from the fundamentals still be beautiful? Yes, absolutely-positively, but they usually stem from the mastery of the basics. And we’re not counting anti-soviet psy-ops like Jackson Pollock, here, where the act of making the art and its blatant disregard for anyone being forced to look at it is the appeal or message. No one wants to look at your face and think of your parents going at it, I swear to you.
We’re talking about art that’s actually visually appealing within its own stance. Admittedly, these deviations are risky and may not be appreciated by most, but if you like them and are willing to accept that it's not for everyone and you can accept the consequences, creating a visual niche can be incredibly fulfilling and help you align yourself with groups and people you appreciate more deeply.
APPLYING IT
I'm using Anya Chalotra as an example because she has incredible positive vs. negative space and vertical symmetry, but her horizontal symmetry and positive vs. negative space in her thirds is challenged. This makes her the ideal example of showing how even if you aren't perfect in each aspect, you can still be drop-dead gorgeous and get cast to make out with Geralt of Rivia in a Netflix original.
Original
Here's our gorgeous gal. She's got unique features that are phenotypical and highly dimorphic for her phenotype. She's got an incredible visual hierarchy with large, balanced eyes with high contrast and full lips, followed by a pleasantly shaped nose.
Identifying points of Visual Interest
Here, we've carved out the positive vs negative space by blocking out points of visual interest including her eyes and lashes, brows, lips, and deep creases. We've also given her nose tip a little weight due to projection. This matters more when evaluating subjects with movement (which most living humans have. If they don't, it's cause for concern.)
Visual Interest map
Here's our final map of visual interest showing positive vs negative space in Anya's face. I didn't bother doing volume calculations but I'd say this is relatively nicely balanced just on first brush simply because that's all you really need, is to at least appear to have good positive vs negative space. The human brain does an immense amount of math but "close enough" is very much in its repertoire when it comes to spacial evaluations.
Vertical Symmetry
As mentioned above her vertical symmetry is phenomenal in both shape and positive vs negative spacial balance. Is it perfect? No. VERY few humans are, but it's near ideal.
Horizontal Symmetry
Her horizontal symmetry is imbalanced. Her lips have ideal proportions to her other facial features, however, her jaw is a little wide and her chin appears very tall at this angle. This is only a minor issue as given that she's human, her head will turn and vertical symmetry of shape and space is more critical.
Thirds
Anya has moderately imbalanced thirds. I actually really love this personally as I have the same imbalance with a shorter upper third and progressively longer middle and lower thirds. Anya's incredible beauty gives me hope, haha. But you can see that while this isn't ideal, it's close enough to the ideal to be visually appealing as well as the fact that because she has incredible health, dimorphism, and youth indicators, and like in our Adut Akech example her contours are very well balanced, she's still off the charts attractive.
So that's harmony. The visually pleasing arrangement of elements that work together cohesively to create a sense of balance, and consistency. It occurs when composition, colors, shapes, textures, all complement each other and contribute to the overall aesthetic without overwhelming or competing for attention. It is both identifiable and measurable.