Whilst we can scan Pinterest and Instagram for cute feature wall designs and framed prints, when it comes to assembling a gallery wall, creating an unintentional “mish-mash” of art that accents the home and compliments each image next to is harder than it looks.

You can simply throw some similar coloured pictures together and hope for the best, but if you’re after a refined, cohesive gallery wall to wow guests, look great as your Zoom background to solve those working from home woes, and refresh your living spaces - you need to step back and look at the whole picture. Pun intended.

Below, we discuss our top tips on how to create the perfect home gallery wall for your home.

Mixing Media

For a solo piece of wall art, it’s best to go all out and pick your favourite art style, whether that's a painting, photo, watercolour. If it’s the focal piece of the home, it should be something you love.

When creating a wall gallery, however, you have the freedom to experiment and explore multi styles and media for the best results and a truly striking gallery wall; we encourage you to do so.

Mixing typography, photography, oil paintings, and other styles of framed prints add vitality to your gallery. Similarly, feel free to extend this idea to your frames.

Tones & Complementary Colours

When looking for pieces to go in your gallery wall, whether that’s framed prints, large canvases or photographs, choosing the same colours may sound like an easy win. And you’d be right! But when it comes to selecting your colours, you need to consider their colour families, the palettes they belong to and the tones you want to create with your gallery wall.

Choosing base colours, hues and undertones that are complementary colours, or deliberately contradictory, is a sure fire way of generating a cohesive feel to your gallery wall. For example, if you want the wall to be bold, and draw the eye, then go for warm tones. If you’re after a room-cleanser, then cooler tones might be the best bet.

For example: 

Warm: Red, Orange, Yellow

Cold: Blue, Purple and Green.

If you fancy something more eccentric and something that will make your gallery wall pop, look to use complementary colours within your gallery. 

These are colours that are opposites on the colour wheel; they work to help make each other stand out; it’s why black and white works so well. Starting off with a colour wheel in order to determine which colours complement, and which colours contrast each other - in ways that work - is a great place to start planning the palette for your gallery wall.

Why not also take a look at our framed prints? We curate specific collections of prints that are designed to work together in pairs or groups - so once you’ve got your colours, we’ve done the next bit for you!

Map It Out

Before diving straight into drilling holes in your wall, map out your wall gallery on the floor by laying down your framed prints. By laying all your designs on the floor, you can edit, refine, and switch the designs to see which composition works best. We recommend placing one print in the middle and then working your way out.

If you have difficulty visualising,  avoid using nails; use 3M Command Strips on the frame and wall. They click into place, and you can peel them off later and stick your frames to the wall once you are happy with the layout.

Ultimately trust your gut, and do what looks best to you; at the end of the day, it’s going on your wall, and we say there are no rules when it comes to art. 

If you’re stuck for inspiration, take a look at our carefully selected collections for an array of framed prints and unique designs to help you create your own gallery wall.