How to Place a Wall Poster

Posters are perhaps one of the simplest and most accessible ways to decorate walls and liven up the interior. Difficulties arise when all the objects in your composition are of different sizes and shapes, when you want to place on the wall both small family vacation photos and large bright paintings and posters.


This article provides helpful tips on combining different sized and shaped frames on your wall to create a stylish home gallery.

General Advices

  • First of all, decide on the design of the posters, the number and size of the frames, as well as their appearance.
  • Since combining different frames is a rather difficult task, the easiest way is to use identical frames (color, size, thickness). This method is the most popular and is guaranteed to bring an acceptable visual result.
  • Before hanging the frames, carefully consider the placement, or better yet, visualize the placement of the frames on paper or a computer. You can also cut out poster-sized mockups from paper or cardboard and attach them to the designated place.
  • If you use frames of different sizes, such as A3 and A4, you may simply arrange smaller posters by color or composition, resulting in clustering and a more strict composition.
  • To create a decent composition, start with a physical or improvised visual center on the wall and build a composition around it. In the center, you can place the largest poster, another decorative element, or leave it completely empty.
  • When buying framed posters, you are not obliged to hang them exclusively on the wall. Alternatively, you can place them on the shelves in any order. You can always change the order and replace the objects in your gallery without any extra work, and the composition will look original and relaxed. Moreover, posters can be placed on a table or even on the floor, if its size is quite large and does not get lost in the interior.
  • If you want to create a single major highlight on the wall, you can use the so-called museum standard, which involves positioning the artwork on the wall so that its center is at eye level, 1.52 m from the floor. However, you should not blindly follow the guidelines because everything is determined by the height of the ceiling in a specific room, the height of the apartment inhabitants, the size of the furniture group surrounding it, and the size of the poster itself.
  • As an alternative to the traditional method of hanging posters on the wall, we recommend paying attention to the gallery system for hanging posters. Visually, this mechanism looks like a ceiling rail and a poster hanger made of fishing line. This allows you not to damage the walls with nails, quickly move posters and easily control the height of the poster placement.

Placement Advices

After we've figured out all of the major complexities, we can move on to practical options for hanging poster sets on the wall.

Strict and Simple Geometry

The most popular and simple way to arrange posters is a composition of frames of different or the same size, arranged within a geometric shape, such as a rectangle, square or rhombus. With this arrangement, there is practically no need for careful planning and thought, since everything is simple and consistent.

Straight Line

If your wall is too wide and empty, and the number of frames is small, then you can arrange all the posters along it, creating a straight line. You just need to make sure that the centers of the frames are located exactly on the straight line marked in advance.

Clusters

Having a number of posters, it is not necessary to group them all together. You can create two or three clusters, separating them by visual or color, which will be the best option when filling a huge empty wall.

Eclecticism

If your interior is intentionally filled with various bright colors and a variety of decorative elements, then it is not at all necessary to create strict geometric compositions and select identical frames. If you prefer eclecticism, bohemian style in the design of your interior, you can safely combine photographs, posters and paintings of different sizes, shapes and colors on your wall. If part of the gallery color echoes the color of the furniture and decor, the composition will be lively and at the same time harmonious.