A blank wall is an opportunity. A gallery wall is that opportunity done right — a curated wall of art that tells a story instead of just filling space. Done well, it becomes the first thing people notice when they walk into a room. Done badly, it looks like a pile of frames that lost an argument with a hammer.
Here's how to get it right, step by step.
What Is a Gallery Wall (and Why It Works)
A gallery wall is simply a curated group of framed prints, photos or art pieces arranged together on one wall, rather than a single large piece hung alone. The appeal is obvious once you've seen a good one: it's more visually interesting than a single print, it lets you combine different styles and moods in one place, and it's far more forgiving of an awkward wall shape or a room that doesn't have space for one big statement piece.
The catch is that a gallery wall needs a bit more planning than hanging a single poster. The good news: once you know the five steps below, it's genuinely hard to get wrong.
Step 1: Choose Your Layout Style
Before you touch a single nail, decide which of these three layout styles you're going for. Each creates a completely different feeling:
- The Grid — evenly spaced rows and columns, all frames the same size. Clean, calm, modern. Best for minimalist or Scandinavian-style rooms.
- The Salon Wall — an eclectic, densely packed mix of different sizes and frame styles, often floor-to-ceiling. Bold, maximalist, full of personality.
- The Cluster — a loose, organic grouping of 3–7 pieces with irregular but intentional spacing. The most popular style for a reason: it looks curated without looking rigid.
If you're not sure which to pick, start with the Cluster — it's the most forgiving for beginners and works in almost any room.
Step 2: Pick a Cohesive Palette or Theme
The single biggest thing that separates a gallery wall that looks "designed" from one that looks like a garage sale is a unifying thread. You don't need every piece to match — you need them to agree with each other. Pick one of these anchors and let it guide every piece you choose:
- A color story — for example, warm ochre and umber tones, or cool charcoal and teal.
- A subject theme — travel, typography, animals, architecture.
- A frame material — all black frames, all natural oak, or all the same thin metal moulding.
Frame material is the easiest lever to pull if your art itself is varied in style — matching frames instantly make a mismatched set of prints look intentional.
Step 3: Plan Before You Hang
This is the step almost everyone skips, and it's the reason so many gallery walls end up lopsided or full of extra nail holes. Before you pick up a hammer:
- Trace each frame onto kraft paper or newspaper and cut out the shapes.
- Tape the paper templates directly onto the wall in your chosen layout.
- Step back, live with it for a day if you can, and adjust the paper — not the wall.
- Only once you're happy, mark the nail points through the paper and start hanging.
Five minutes with tape and paper saves an afternoon of patching plaster.
Step 4: Mix Sizes, Not Chaos
A gallery wall with only one size of frame can look flat; a wall with completely random sizes can look messy. The sweet spot is choosing two or three sizes and repeating them. At Auralis, our posters come in three consistent sizes — 30×40, 50×70 and 70×100 cm — specifically so a 50×70 anchor piece, a couple of 30×40 supporting pieces, and one larger 70×100 centerpiece will always line up cleanly, without any custom framing needed.
A simple rule of thumb: let one piece be roughly 1.5–2x larger than the smallest pieces in the group, and repeat at least one size at least twice so the eye has something to rest on.
Step 5: Get the Height Right
The single most common gallery wall mistake is hanging everything too high. The center of your entire arrangement — not the top, the visual center — should sit at roughly eye level, around 145–155 cm from the floor for most rooms. If the wall is above a sofa or console table, leave 15–25 cm of breathing room between the furniture and the lowest frame.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Too much even spacing. 5–8 cm between frames usually looks more natural than a rigid, ruler-measured gap.
- Ignoring the room's existing lines. Let your layout echo a door frame, a window, or the line of a piece of furniture below it rather than fighting against the room's geometry.
- Buying everything at once. Some of the best gallery walls are built over months. Start with three pieces, live with them, and add.
- No color, style or frame connection at all. Even the loosest, most eclectic salon wall needs at least one unifying thread — see Step 2.
Shop the Look
Every poster in our collection is printed on 200gsm FSC-certified fine art paper in the same three sizes, with free worldwide shipping — which makes mixing and matching across our collections easy without worrying about your gallery wall lining up. A few pairings to get you started:
- Tokyo Night Rain as a moody anchor piece, paired with Matcha Samurai for a cohesive Japandi corner.
- Bauhaus next to Focus for a clean, design-led grid layout.
- Sleeping Cat with Reading Girl for a soft, cozy reading-corner cluster.
Whatever you choose, remember: it doesn't have to be perfect on day one. Less wall. More soul — one frame at a time.