How to design the perfect gallery wall with Adam Ellis

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I am Adam Ellis of Adam Ellis Studio.

We are a fine art and design studio.

Today, we're going to be looking

at how to hang the perfect gallery wall.

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So, today we are in my studio in West London.

The thing that we are most known for now really is wallpaper

and our framed print collection;

really anything that you might hang on a wall.

So, I think one of the great things about a gallery wall

is that it allows for lots of lovely rich contrast

between pictures.

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Making decisions on hanging pictures can be difficult.

The gallery wall takes that pressure away,

which means that you can hang all sorts

of different things next to each other,

whether it's something

that is very contemporary against something that's antique,

something you picked up a flea market,

perhaps something you paid a bit more money for

at an exhibition.

And that allows equally for a lot of joy.

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If you were thinking about a diamond formation,

which is something that I have behind me here today

and actually is a great formation when thinking

about balancing pictures with a piece of furniture,

for example, a sofa or a sideboard,

I would always tend to start

with the larger pieces in the middle.

But if you think about hanging them in a column,

so one directly centered over the other,

and think about making a column again, left and right,

of your two central pieces.

If these pieces are of very different proportions,

that's actually great.

If you have a very tall portrait piece on one side,

you can balance that by, say, a squarer piece

on the left-hand side that then has a taller piece above it.

So, you're achieving similar heights with the columns,

albeit with different format pieces.

I think it's nice to bring in landscape pieces

that sit below a portrait piece.

That all adds interest.

So, having got your two columns left and right

of your central column, you then think

about doing the same process again,

this time with a smaller column,

possibly pairing pictures up again.

And I think what's lovely then is finishing

on a very small piece that's almost like a punctuation.

It becomes like a full stop.

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We really love hanging pictures on rails

and chains, not least because it gives us

lots of flexibility; we're not forever having

to put holes in the wall.

They look fabulous, but also appreciate

that they're not gonna be practical for everybody.

You certainly don't need them.

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I think one thing perhaps not to think about

or worry about too much are keeping all the gaps even.

In fact, they shouldn't be really.

I think there's interest where you have this bigger gap,

smaller gaps, but I'm quite deliberately trying

to break up straight lines.

So, offset pieces, not align things perfectly,

but as I say, it can be tuned once all the pieces are up.

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There's nothing stopping building out the columns more,

both left and right, playing with the height.

So, really, now you've got this framework,

and you can just keep adding and building it out.

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A rectangular arrangement for a gallery wall

is a little bit more involved,

but ideal for a very tailored size.

So, if you had a piece of furniture, whether it was a sofa

or a sideboard or whatever it might be,

and you want to match the proportions,

you can do this really quite precisely

with this arrangement.

So, the idea of columns applies to all arrangements,

and this is no exception.

Essentially, here, if we take this piece away,

we have two columns.

Now, we could add a single piece under here

and a single piece under here to extend the column,

but actually I'm going to put a bigger piece underneath

that spans both the columns.

So, all we've done really is just create one bigger column,

but at the same time we've disrupted the two verticals,

which is very nice.

But all we now need to do is think again

about our column left, and our column right,

so exactly the same principle.

Bottom right, aligning these at these bottom edges.

I think the owl up high.

So, the left-hand column, same idea again,

align my bottom-left piece, my top-left piece,

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and then our two centerpieces.

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So, you can see that these two pieces

are really a lot smaller, as are these two.

But it doesn't matter.

In fact, there's a lot more space around this piece

because we've got our clearly-defined shape.

I think that's pretty successful.

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When thinking about gallery walls,

you only need a few simple connections between the pieces

to give it, essentially, a bit of a theme.

So, here, for instance, we have the two faces.

We have the faces of the sun,

and they clearly speak to each other.

We have our two greens, bottom left and top right.

I like the idea, again, that we have something

that lives deep under the sea

and something that lives high up in the trees.

That's just a simple play.

The monochrome piece, I think, at the bottom

allows the colors to pop around it.

And I think, as a whole then it hangs together.

I think that's pretty successful.

So, this arrangement is circular or oval

and is very good for a tall, skinny space.

You can make real use of the height.

So, the pictures can actually hang very low,

just off the skirting, and go all the way up

to just below the ceiling.

If we start with our central column,

so what we're trying to do is build a strong spine,

and everything will then build out around this.

The next thing I'm gonna think about is the horizontal.

So, essentially, making a cross shape, broadly speaking.

So, just have just a loose sense here of the oval,

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bringing in much smaller pieces as well.

They all work.

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This piece is deliberately very low

'cause I want it to connect with the bench,

but actually maybe it's just a fraction too low,

so I'm just gonna bring it up a little bit.

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So, again, thinking about columns,

keeping the left-hand edges aligned on the right column,

and similarly on the left-hand column,

we'll keep the right-hand edges aligned.

And you're trying to create more or less vertical lines

down through the arrangement.

But then, with the horizontal lines broken up,

so you're trying to interrupt those lines

that cut through the arrangement.

Don't ever be afraid to mix up the frames.

I think that just adds interest

and a more layered feel to the whole arrangement.

So, here we've got a pair of white frames,

very different images in each,

but actually I think the white frames contrast really well,

the painted white frames, with the oak,

and the fact that you have one on each side,

it helps tie it together.

What then become the corner sections you infill

just with smaller pieces,

and that's then what creates the shape.

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