My top tips for gallery walls- part 2
Also known as how to avoid driving yourself crazy when creating a gallery wall
Gallery walls 101
Which gallery wall?
In my first blog I talked you through the first steps in putting your gallery wall together. This is where I go into a little more detail on the different types of gallery walls, including my favourite. The organic!
The grid
Precision and balance is the name of the game here. This grid format works really well with frames and pictures that coordinate. For example, black frames with black and white photos or white frames with full colour images.
This grid with its six photos of the Yorkshire landscape is a great example of a grid formation. Each photo is spaced exactly the same distance apart, but there is a slightly wider gap between the top and bottom rows because I wanted the rows to be spaced proportionately on the wall.
So, when you’re mocking up your grid gallery wall you want to focus on:
- The order you want to the pictures to hang
- The gap between each picture
- The gap between each row
While this gallery wall looks simple it’s probably the one, I find hardest to do, because it takes a lot of very careful measuring to get right.
Statement grid
I love statement grids! They are perfect for spaces where you want to make an impact, like an entrance hall. I mocked up this gallery wall on Canva and I think it would look fabulous above a sideboard in a hall, with a pair of generous lamps at either end.
But if you want to make a slightly less formal statement with your gallery wall, try mixing up the frames. Personally, I wouldn’t go for too many really decorative styles, I’d recommend keeping them pretty simple so that I can focus on the pictures in the gallery wall itself.
Organic or freestyle
This is my favourite type of gallery wall! The key is to find a central image and decide where to place if, before adding others around it. It’s a more organise or freestyle approach which I think suits my design style.
This style works best when you have about 5 or 6 pictures of varying size. I have an organic gallery wall in my office. I started with three pictures of different sizes, laid them out on the floor, working out the spacing and then put them on the wall.
- I found a central point for the first pictures;
- I positioned the second picture approx 7.5cm apart and about 1/3 higher, and I went on from there.
This started the organic look I was after, and then I just kept adding to it. When I spot a picture I like, I add it to the wall, keeping the same gap between each of them. The frames are either black or gold, which means they work well together, but they aren’t matchy matchy.
