How to hang pictures – 15 tips for your gallery wall

By Yella Roth - Mon, 19/08/2019 - 15:06

How can you hang your own pictures and arrange them into a stylish gallery wall? Whether holiday photos, landscape shots, family portraits or art prints: your favourite artworks and pictures make your home feel cosy and give it a unique ambience. They deserve a stylish presentation!

In our guide, we reveal all the options for hanging pictures and what these arrangements are called. Discover valuable tips for mounting your pictures and various hanging styles that turn every room into a work of art.

Tip 1: Before hanging: pay attention to your pictures' surroundings!

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Tip 1: Before hanging: pay attention to your pictures' surroundings!

Before you start drilling holes and hanging pictures, keep the following points in mind:

• To ensure your pictures harmonise with the furniture, the size proportions need to be right. A large picture suits a large sofa. Wall-filling paintings, on the other hand, can overwhelm a small guest bathroom.

• Your motifs will stand out particularly well against a coloured wall. It looks cohesive when similar colour tones appear on walls, pictures, and various home accessories or furnishings. While you generally can't go wrong with a white background, your pictures often don't stand out properly against patterned or multicoloured walls.

• A striking colourful acrylic photo frame or a mount frame for your photo can help remedy this. If you don't want to hang a picture in the centre of a wall but offset to one side, make sure to create a visual counterbalance with another piece of furniture or home accessory.

• While vertical arrangements make your walls look higher, horizontal groupings create the impression that a room is wider.

• Lay out your possible arrangements on the floor first or sketch your layout on paper before hanging the pictures. This can save you unnecessary drilling, nailing, and hammering!

• Painter's tape or a horizontally stretched string will make hanging easier afterwards. A spirit level helps with alignment when hanging the pictures.

• Especially for large and heavy pictures or walls with cavities, it can make sense to secure them with a wall plug and screws. Choose the plug according to your wall material. The load capacity of individual plugs can be found on the packaging or ask at your DIY store.

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Here's how to mount your picture ensemble flexibly if you want to avoid plugs, nails, and drilling:

• Use gallery rails (also known as picture rails). The flexible cable suspensions or picture wire with picture hooks give you the advantage of being able to rearrange your hanging pictures again and again. They also leave no unsightly drill holes in the wall. The downside: not every hanging method or picture presentation is possible with them.

• With a gallery rail, you can arrange pictures as a single hanging, edge hanging, grid hanging, or symmetrically. In short, all arrangements that can be attached straight and in a row to a picture wire are suitable for this hanging method.

• The latest generation of adhesive strips, known as adhesive nails, are also suitable for semi-permanent hangings of picture groups. These adhesive strips can be removed without a trace and rearranged as needed.

Tip 2: Always hang pictures at eye level

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For pictures to look their best, they should always hang at eye level. You can use a height of 1.60 m above the floor to the centre of the picture as a reference line. Consider whether you want to view your pictures while seated — for example from the sofa — or while standing or walking past. As a general rule, you should orientate yourself to reference lines when hanging pictures. These can be either lines already present in the room — for example, the outlines of door frames, furniture, or window edges — or imaginary guide lines.

Tip 3: Make a statement with a single hanging

One wall, one picture, a so-called soloist. A particularly striking or cherished motif deserves a place of honour. Whether as a large-format canvas or a small art print: when a motif has an entire wall to itself, it draws all eyes. You can also place one picture on several walls and in niches, giving each one the chance to shine. Pay attention to the size proportions of your furniture and décor relative to your picture!

Tip 4: Clean lines with the edge hanging

With the edge hanging, the corners and edges of all pictures are aligned along an imaginary centre line. The spacing between pictures should always be equal, but can vary both horizontally and vertically.

Tip 5: Arrange pictures in a row hanging

Whether vertical or horizontal in a line, the row hanging is a classic form of picture arrangement. If you want to use different sized formats, you have two options for your picture row: either you can arrange the pictures as an edge hanging, or you arrange them so that the centre points of the pictures lie on an imaginary centre line.

Tip 6: Fill an entire wall with the Salon hanging

The Salon hanging is also called the Petersburg hanging or "organised chaos". Numerous closely placed motifs cover almost an entire wall. The name refers to the lavishly hung walls of the St Petersburg Hermitage. Although the Salon hanging ignores sight lines, there are other connecting elements: these can be motifs with a stylistically similar interpretive approach, identical or similar frames, mounts, or similar formats. A connecting element brings a certain calm to the sometimes floor-to-ceiling gallery wall, so that "chaos" meets "order".

Tip 7: Hanging pictures harmoniously: the grid hanging

Similar to a chessboard, the individual pictures in a grid hanging are arranged in a strict, geometric pattern. The frames of your pictures should hang in a line and the spacing should be equal on all sides. The grid hanging looks best when all motifs have the same format. A cohesive overall look is achieved when you arrange your photo in an aluminium frame or a photo in a mount frame uniformly with the same picture frames.

Tip 8: "Inside the Lines": a hanging style for creative aesthetes

With the Inside-the-Lines arrangement, pictures hang loosely on the wall. Uniform spacing, sight lines, and edges do not need to be maintained. To ensure the picture ensemble still looks harmonious, you should arrange your pictures within an imaginary geometric shape. This can be a circle, an oval, a rectangle, or a square. Rectangles or squares are also referred to as a block hanging. When hanging, you should start with the largest motifs and arrange all other motifs around them one by one.

Tip 9: Creating calm through a symmetrical hanging

The human eye perceives symmetry as harmonious — and this applies to picture ensembles too. To arrange a symmetrical picture ensemble, you need at least three artworks, two of which have the same format. First, establish a vertically or horizontally running axis of symmetry. Then measure picture positions and fixings precisely, as irregularities are particularly noticeable with this hanging style.

Tip 10: Not all pictures need to be hung: the picture ledge

Picture ledges can be arranged with flexible motifs and at the same time give your walls more structure. In addition, you can combine your standing picture ensemble with small home accessories or furnishings and place them next to the motifs. The great advantage: picture ledges are easy to redecorate and rearrange.

Tip 11: Propped pictures instead of hanging

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By propping pictures against the wall, you opt for an unusual, relaxed way of presenting them. It is important that you choose pictures in a large format with a striking motif. Due to the placement, there is otherwise a risk that your works will be overlooked — your pictures need to draw all eyes.

Tip 12: Different perspectives for more variety

One picture — different perspectives. A special effect is achieved when different views of the same motif are displayed. This form of arrangement is possible as a row or edge hanging, as a symmetrical arrangement, or as a corner hanging.

Tip 13: A multi-panel piece or triptych for a panoramic view

A work consisting of three individual pictures is called a triptych. It is also possible to divide into many individual pictures in a series. For the picture composition to look its best, you should arrange the individual fragments of the multi-panel piece preferably in a row, edge to edge, and with minimal spacing.

Tip 14: Hanging pictures to connect spaces: the corner hanging

The corner hanging offers a genuine element of surprise when viewed, as the picture composition only reveals itself when you look around the corner. For the hanging to achieve the best effect, make sure the pictures complement each other and do not differ too much in shape and size. Different perspectives of the same motif also work particularly well here.

Tip 15: Showcasing special moments with a collage

Many small individual pieces can make up a cohesive whole: combine your finds, holiday memories, photos, or artworks into a wall picture! Whether photo prints, postcards, or art prints — for your individual total artwork you can combine whatever you like. You have the option of arranging all pictures close together on the wall or on a backing board. Finally, frame your ensemble so that nothing slips. If hands-on crafting is not your thing, you can also use suitable image editing programmes to create a digital collage. Cutting, pasting, placing, and colouring works wonderfully at pixel level too! A collage is a creative way to approach hanging pictures in a playful manner. The digitally created collage can then be printed.

Extra tip: Stylish photo products for your gallery wall

To ensure all your artworks look their very best, you need the right mounting and picture frames. We recommend long-lasting and brilliant acrylic glass for your favourite motifs. In round or other shapes, your treasures are guaranteed to turn heads! To hold all the elements of your gallery wall together, opt for classic mount frames. This creates a stylish unity and a successful overall look!