Foundation General Blog

When interior designers use the term “wall hangings,” they are commonly referring to anything and everything that one may hang on a wall. London is a fabulous place to choose wall hangings due to the many active artist communities and the strong tradition of professional interior design.

In this second article in my series on “How Interior Designers Select Wall Hangings,” I will talk in detail about several approaches that I have seen while working alongside many of London’s most successful interior design professionals.
As a general guideline, pictures tend to work well when arranged in squares or rectangles. London is a world fashion centre, and jaunty mismatched shapes can be interesting for certain highly customised interior designs, but in most cases it is best to stick with simple 90-degree angles.

Second, symmetry is important. Often when the interior designer has one central picture and several others in a set, they will choose some sort of symmetrical arrangement.

Third, a popular approach in London’s interior design community is to use the concept of “horizons” against which to align the upper edges of multiple pictures in a group. If an interior designer has an assortment of differently-sized rectangular frames, they may choose to hang an upper row from one “horizon” and the lower row from a different “horizon.”

Fourth, London Interior Design consultancies often talk of “anchoring.” This refers to a technique by which the largest images in a set form the corners of an imaginary rectangle or square, while smaller pictures are used to “fill in” the rest of the available area.

Fifth, to add interest and move away from rectangles, certain interior design professionals love to use the “cross technique” when they have rectangular frames of various sizes. This requires arranging pictures in the shape of a cross, with the larger pictures below the horizontal line and smaller frames above to balance their mass.

Sixth, London interior designers often focus on hanging the largest pictures at the bottom of a group, along a single horizontal line. This can give a stable feel to the broader arrangement. I have worked with some top London interior design teams who always choose to place the tallest image in the centre of this horizon to draw the eye upwards and accentuate features of the presentation.

In the next articles in this series, I will talk about best practices in the use of lighting and mirrors to highlight wall hangings of various types.