Universal Principles of Design, Updated and Expanded Third Edition

167 Self-Similarity

A property in which a thing is composed of similar patterns at multiple levels of scale.

Many forms in nature exhibit self-similarity, and as a result it is commonly held to be an intrinsically aesthetic property. People find self-similar forms beautiful, especially when the mathematical density of the pattern resembles savanna-like environments and trees.1

Natural forms tend to exhibit self-similarity at many different levels of scale, whereas human-created forms generally do not. For example, an aerial view of a coastline reveals the same basic edge pattern, whether standing at the water’s edge or viewed from low-Earth orbit. Although varying levels of detail are seen, the same pattern emerges — the detail is a self-similar ...