Silver Rectangle

1000 x 1414 px sRGB 1.41:1 portrait

A 1000 by 1414 px silver rectangle. The √2 proportion that underlies the entire ISO A-series paper system and the only rectangle whose halves preserve its proportion.

about the size of a Full HD screen

About this size

The silver rectangle has a unique geometric property: cut it in half across the long edge and you get two rectangles with identical proportions. ISO 216 was built on that property so that A4 halves into A5, A5 halves into A6, and the proportion stays consistent through the entire size series.

For design work, the same property makes silver-ratio canvases ideal for layout systems where designs need to scale or halve without changing their proportional feel.

Silver ratio studies
ISO proportions
Composition

Pro tips

1 Useful for layout systems that need to scale or halve while preserving proportion. No other rectangle has this property.
2 Less elongated than the golden rectangle; more elongated than the bronze. Sits in the middle of the metallic-rectangle family.
3 The mathematical basis of every A-size paper. Designs at this proportion scale cleanly to ISO paper output.