Human Design · your user guide
Calculate your Human Design for free
Enter your date, time and place of birth: type, authority, profile and centers, in plain words.
What is Human Design?
Human Design reads a person from the moment of their birth. Ra Uru Hu developed it from 1987 onward, combining astrology, the I Ching, the Kabbalah and the chakras. It measures nothing and predicts nothing. It offers a vocabulary to describe a way of making decisions, spending energy and relating to others, and that vocabulary is there to help you recognize yourself, not to put you in a box.
Four types, four strategies
In Human Design, everything starts with the type. There are four. The Generator, about 37% of the population, follows the strategy of waiting to respond. The Manifesting Generator, about 33%, is a Generator and shares that strategy. The Projector, about 20%, waits for the invitation. The Manifestor, about 9%, informs before acting. The Reflector, about 1%, waits a lunar cycle before major decisions.
Each type also has two markers, a sign of alignment and a warning signal. Satisfaction for both Generators, set against frustration, on which anger often piles up in the Manifesting Generator. Success and bitterness for the Projector, peace and anger for the Manifestor, surprise and disappointment for the Reflector. Many people recognize the warning signal long before they know their type.
Authority, profile and centers
The authority describes how a person makes their soundest decisions: through emotion left to ripen, through a response from the gut, through an immediate sensation in the body, and so on. There are seven of them. The profile, made of two numbers such as 2/4 or 4/6, describes a way of moving through life and learning. The nine centers are either defined, with a steady, recognizable energy, or open. When open, they pick up the energy of others.
What the free calculation gives you
The Human Design calculator on this page is free. It shows your type, with its description and its strategy, your authority and the way of deciding that goes with it, your profile if your birth time is known, and your defined centers, each with a sentence saying what it brings. The result is written out in plain words, with no chart to decipher. Each element then has its own, longer page: what the type is like to live, its gifts, its challenges, and a set of frequently asked questions.
How your Human Design is calculated
Calculating your Human Design starts with astronomy, then follows a series of simple rules. You are not asked a single question. Everything starts from the position of thirteen points in the sky at two moments, and the rest is deduced from those positions, step by step.
Two moments: birth and the Design
The first moment is birth: this is the Personality. The second, the Design, falls about three months earlier, at the exact moment the Sun stood 88 degrees further back in the zodiac. At each of these two moments, the calculation records thirteen positions: the Sun, the Earth, the Moon, the North and South Nodes, then Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. That makes 26 positions.
The zodiac is divided into 64 gates of 5.625 degrees each, and each gate into six lines. Each position therefore falls in a gate, on a line. The place of birth serves a single purpose: converting your local time into universal time, with the time zone and daylight saving time in force that day.
From gates to channels, from channels to centers
The 64 gates are spread across nine centers, and 36 channels connect these centers in pairs. A channel is defined when both its gates are activated, whether at birth or at the Design. A center is defined as soon as a defined channel touches it. Otherwise, it stays open.
Take a birth on December 10, 1985, at 2:30 p.m., in Paris. Three channels are defined: 64-47, which connects the Head to the Ajna, 26-44, which connects the Heart to the Spleen Center, and 10-34, which connects the G Center to the Sacral. Six centers out of nine are therefore defined.
How the type and the authority are deduced
The type depends on two questions: is the Sacral defined, and is a motor center connected to the Throat, directly or through other defined centers? The motor centers are the Heart, the Solar Plexus, the Sacral and the Root. The Heart can, for example, reach the Throat through the G Center, or the Root through the Spleen Center. No defined center: Reflector. A motor connected to the Throat without a defined Sacral: Manifestor. With a defined Sacral: Manifesting Generator. A defined Sacral without that connection: Generator. In every other case, Projector.
The authority follows a fixed order. If the Solar Plexus is defined, it is emotional, whatever else is defined. Otherwise, the Sacral is checked, then the Spleen Center, the Heart, the G Center, and finally the Ajna or the Head for Mental Authority. When none of these centers is defined, the authority is lunar. In the 1985 example, the Sacral is defined, the Throat is open, so no motor is connected to it, and the Solar Plexus is open: Generator, Sacral Authority.
The profile, the cross, and why the time matters
The profile combines two lines: the line of the Sun at birth, the Personality Sun, then the line of the Sun at the Design, the Design Sun. The 1985 example gives 2/4. The gates of the Sun and the Earth, at both moments, also draw the incarnation cross, whose angle is deduced from the profile.
The Moon moves through more than two gates a day, so a different birth time often shifts channels. Across 150 dates drawn at random, the type changes during the day in nearly three cases out of ten, and the profile changes every time. Without a time, the calculation is therefore run every 15 minutes, from midnight to 11:59 p.m., 97 times in all. Only what stays the same all day is shown. The profile does not appear.
Human Design pages
Each element of the calculation has its own pages: 4 types, with a separate page for the Manifesting Generator, 7 authorities, 12 profiles, 9 centers, 36 channels, 64 gates and 192 incarnation crosses. You can read them without running the calculation, for yourself or for someone close to you.
The 4 Human Design types
- 37% of the populationGeneratorStrategy: Wait to respond
- 33% of the populationManifesting GeneratorStrategy: Wait to respond
- 9% of the populationManifestorStrategy: Inform before acting
- 20% of the populationProjectorStrategy: Wait for the invitation
- 1% of the populationReflectorStrategy: Wait a lunar cycle
Explore further
- The AuthoritiesHow you make your soundest decisions
- The ProfilesYour behavioral signature, defined by two lines
- The Centers
- The ChannelsThe 36 circuits that connect two centers to each other
- The GatesThe 64 precise seeds of energy that activate each center
- The CrossesThe broadest life theme, drawn by 4 Sun and Earth gates
Frequently asked questions about Human Design
Does Human Design go by other names?
In French it is also called Design Humain, and both names refer to the same system, with the same types, authorities and profiles. The calculation on this page is the same whichever name you search for.
Do I need to know my birth time?
It is better, but not required. Without a time, the calculation is run every 15 minutes over the whole day. The type, the authority and the centers are shown only if they stay the same from morning to night, and the profile is never shown, because it always changes during the day.
Can my type be wrong if my birth time is approximate?
Rarely. If your actual time falls within the hour before or after, the type changes in about one case in twenty. The profile is far more sensitive: it changes nearly one time in five. A time taken from the birth certificate remains the best basis.
Are there four or five types?
Four. Jovian Archive, publisher of Ra Uru Hu’s work, states that the Manifesting Generator is not a fifth type but a Generator, with the same strategy, waiting to respond, and the same signature, satisfaction. It has its own page here because the calculation tells it apart: a motor connected to the Throat, which gives it its speed, and anger that often piles on top of frustration.
Is it a personality test?
No. You are not asked any question and you choose nothing: everything comes from your date, time and place of birth. Two people born in the same place, in the same minute, have the same Human Design.
Why is the place of birth needed?
To convert your local time into universal time, with the right time zone and the daylight saving time of the period. An error of one hour on this point amounts to an error of one hour in the birth time.
How does Human Design relate to the other systems?
On this page, Human Design is read on its own. The Soulencia Crossed Portrait sets it alongside numerology, the Dreamspell and astrology, in a single synthesis.