Brian R. Brown

Tag: photo wall

  • Choosing Picture Frames

    Choosing Picture Frames

    Part of the “Making the Family Photo Wall” post series:

    Frames set the foundation on which the family photo wall would be built, and how well this was done would mean the difference between beauty and beast. It really is good to start from scratch and avoid the temptation of pulling into service the various frames you may already have around the house.

    At the very least, I would recommend thinking through the look and feel you want to create before even picking up a frame. Then, if you happen to have frames that fit the bill, brilliant.

    In general, it’s important to consider the characteristics of the frames…

    • material
    • color
    • secondary color
    • size
    • shape
    • texture
    • style
    • matting (style and color)

    From there, just like mixing patterns when it comes to clothing, I’d suggest picking a base characteristic or two to build off of, and then carefully determining where you bring in variable characteristics. Remember that the photos will bring some contrast and variety on their own and of course, should ultimately be the focal point.

    Frame detail based on foundation on black color, wood, with white matting...predominantly that is.
    Foundation on black color, wood, with white matting…predominantly that is.

    Less is definitely more here. At all costs, avoid the PowerPoint syndrome where you try to work in every possible transition, multiple fonts, and text treatments. Unless you are shooting for a completely, over-the-top look, and have the personality and decor to back it up. Otherwise, don’t feel that you have to vary every or even most of these characteristics. In fact, another way to think about this is, “the more noticeable the difference of a particular characteristic, the less noticeable the other characteristics should be.”

    For us, we knew we wanted some variance in picture frame size and shape, texture, and photo sizes, as well as a mix of color and black & white photos. So to avoid creating a visual circus, we decided to go with black frames, primarily wood, with white mats. However, we also didn’t want the “kit look,” so rather than buying a purpose-made set of 10 matching frames, we set out to buy frames from different manufacturers and from different stores. While there was some variety in style, most were modern, flat styling. Only one frame had a subtle, secondary color, and one frame broke the mold and was a completely different color, which we used to create a unique focal point.

    As in most things, the key to rules is figuring out precisely where to break them.

    Subtle variances in frame styling, black shelf for one for added depth.
    Subtle variances in frame styling, black shelf for one for added depth.

    The only other suggestion I’d make here that may not be obvious is to avoid restricting yourself prematurely on the number of frames and then seeking out said number of frames. Not only will this be constraining, but most likely be frustrating as well as you agonize over the last two frames. Instead, buy to your heart’s content, hang on to the receipts, and be very careful with them until you figure out which ones you want to use and which ones should go back.

    However…you may want to avoid buying more than you can reasonably afford, as we at least ended up using all that we bought!

    Next came Arranging Frames on the Wall

  • Arranging Picture Frames on the Wall

    Arranging Picture Frames on the Wall

    Part of the “Making the Family Photo Wall” post series:

    Perhaps the only thing more daunting than hanging picture frames is determining the actual layout, placement, and positioning of the frames. What really made this project far less daunting than it should have been was a tip picked up from Pottery Barn’s “How to Create a Frame Display.”

    The great tip was to take large sheets of paper cut out as templates that match the size of each of the prospective frames. We had just gotten a regular shipment from Amazon which included a lot of brown packing paper, which once flattened out works nicely. I didn’t actually frame out the matting area like Pottery Barn’s guide, which would probably be very helpful if you already have a number of sized photos to place. Our frame placement was actually done without specific pictures in mind as we intend to rotate pictures over time.

    Pottery Barn's How to Create a Frame Display
    Pottery Barn’s How to Create a Frame Display
    Photo wall work in progress, mounting the picture frames.
    Photo Wall Work in Progress…while optional, the scotch is highly recommended.

    Once all the templates, or in this case, FPO (for position only) placeholders were cut out, it made it very easy to start positioning them on the wall and rearranging them as necessary to map out where each frame would go. Having some understanding of design, balance, and having the framing area broken into a 3×3 grid of course made it very easy, and only minor adjustments were made to the original placements. Your mileage may vary.

    I highly recommend marking off the grid though as it will really give you a feel for the overall balance. We also elected for a more “free-form” organic display than the painstaking process of trying to get frames to match up.

    From there, I used a great hanging measurement approach to determine where the wall hangers needed to go for the frames to match the placeholders and set about hanging the picture frames. This technique would also be even more critical if you wanted a strictly aligned display.

    On to Hanging Picture Frames

  • Hanging Picture Frames

    Hanging Picture Frames

    Part of the “Making the Family Photo Wall” post series:

    Hanging a single picture frame or painting can be a nightmare in its own right, let alone hanging 14 in a collective display.

    There are some tricks however that can really make this relatively painless. Some time ago I learned a great gallery-hanging technique as I was getting ready to hang a gazillion or so paintings throughout our new house. The key here is setting a center focal height and then hanging all frames, paintings, and “collections” centered on that point.

    There are a number of guides online, but here’s an excerpt from a great site that I found before that sums it up nicely:

    Step By Step:

    1. Measure and lightly mark 57″ on the wall
    2. Measure top of your picture to the middle (or take height and divide by 2)
    3. Measure top of your picture to the tightened wire (a small amount)
    4. Subtract this last amount to tell you how far above 57″ your hook should go
    5. Measure up from 57″ with this last amount and lightly mark on the wall

    Example:

    1. Picture is 20″ tall
    2. Middle is 10″ down from top (this should rest at 57″)
    3. Wire comes to 2″ below the top
    4. 10″ – 2″ = 8″
    5. Lightly mark 8″ above your first mark OR 65″ on the wall

    Though this may seem complicated to read, it is quite simple when you do it. The thing to always remember is that the CENTER of all your pictures are hanging at the same 57″, and you are just figuring out where the hook goes above it.

    This 57″ also applies to groups of pictures. Think of a group as ONE picture. After you arrange how you want them all to hang (doing this on the floor makes it easier), start with the center picture/pictures and get them at 57″ on center. Then surround them with the rest of the group.
    Credit: Apartment Therapy

    Clear as mud? See if this illustration helps.

    Picture Hanging Illustration

    Like a number of the comments, I too found 57″ a little on the low side for my taste, so I’ve adopted 60″ as our center throughout the house. Either way, remember though that this point is where the frame suspension meets the wall hanger…so if you are using the typical wall hanger hooks with the nail at one end that then drops down to form the hook, place the hook portion at your mark, not the nail.

    That said, I must confess I didn’t use the centering point approach precisely for our photo wall project since I planned for it to basically fill a generally large space, to begin with. For a larger display like this, I instead aimed for a balance between the top and bottom, though heavier on the top since to be centered vertically would have moved everything down quite a bit lower to the floor. I do however recommend this approach for “normal” frame hanging.

    While the technique above is worth its weight in gold, what really makes hanging multiple frames in a room, either grouped or individually, is a little bit of modern technology.

    Cue the laser mouse.

    I first learned of the absolute brilliance of this tool when I used it to hang 11 frames in the nursery before our son Hamilton was born. Most of these frames were aligned horizontally as groups and the laser mouse allowed me to easily mark off the center point along the wall to measure up from for setting the hooks.

    Hanging wall frames based on a center focal plane.
    Hamilton’s frame arrangement, creates a consistent focal plane across a series of wall frames.

    While I didn’t use it on the family photo wall for the individual frames, I did use it to frame out the borders for the photo wall as well as to create a 3×3, horizontal and vertical grid with the aid of blue painter’s tape.

    Finally, the icing on the cake, Choosing & Arranging Photos

  • Choosing and Arranging Photos

    Choosing and Arranging Photos

    Part of the “Making the Family Photo Wall” post series:

    Admittedly, Jill handled this aspect, so I’ll just share my thoughts on what I think really made this work. This of course is a critical part that makes all of the other efforts worthwhile. In other words, get this part wrong, and the rest of it probably doesn’t matter.

    Comparable Quality

    I think this is probably the most critical element. This doesn’t mean that all of your photos must be shot by a professional photographer (though it helps, especially if it was the same photographer for all, like our amazing photographer Oscar Pallares), but they should share a consistent level of quality. Quality, in this case, is as much about the framing and the “eye of the photographer” as it is the actual prints…ours are all printed right from an inkjet printer onto photo paper.

    Story Balance

    As I mentioned at the beginning, I didn’t necessarily want a “wedding wall.” Certainly, that can be done and it can look great, but we really wanted something that felt a little more timeless. However, I think the pendulum can swing way too far the other way as well. For us at least, we based most of the pictures around a few separate photo shoots…engagement photos, the wedding, and our fall/Christmas family photos, and then filled in with a few others, like Hazel and Hamilton’s birth announcements.

    The specifics of this will really be dependent on your own taste as well as the pictures, frames, and overall arrangement you are constructing. If you already have all the pictures at the start of the project, this is where placing them on the FPO (for position only) templates would really come in handy.

    One thing to experiment with would be whether you keep your individual stories grouped, or break them out amongst the frames. For us, we intermixed them all which I think helps to give it a varied look without over-powering your focus on any one particular area.

    Visual Variety

    Again, this may come down to personal tastes, but I think breaking things up with some more formal-looking pictures and with some more candid pictures gives it a little extra life and vibrancy. Additionally, intermixing a few black-and-white pictures with color gives the whole display another, deeper dimension.

    In either case, a little bit goes a long way and it is probably best to avoid an even split, which starts to feel too planned and calculated…it becomes the “one size fits all,” which we know, generally doesn’t fit anyone well, but doesn’t not fit…meh.

    In Your Face

    Finally, and again this will be somewhat subjective for specific instances, but don’t be afraid to get up close and personal with the pictures. Forget the nicely centered school portrait look…crop in close, move off center, bring in an angle, etc. Hopefully, if you have professional photos to begin with, much of this may already be done for you. I think it helps to really identify what the key element is in each photo, and more times than not, it probably isn’t, so crop in from there and see what you get.

    For example, is it the background or the person, and if it’s the person, is it the whole person or their head, and actually is it their head or their face, and most likely, it’s their eyes, perhaps. Again though, aim for a careful balance, breaking up a lot of close-ups with a few wider views may be best.

    And there, if all comes together nicely, you hopefully are left with a wonderful family photo wall.

    Cheers

  • Making the Family Photo Wall

    Making the Family Photo Wall

    I suppose it is just one of those official writs of passage that comes with married life.

    You see, at least as a bachelor, photo walls, picture walls…choose your vernacular…are not particularly common. Not that bachelors necessarily abhor photos, but a large collection condensed into a single collective display may be a bit much, off-putting even…especially if they form a whose-who of who-has-been. Much better to scatter them around a bit…the photos that is.

    While Jill and I had been together for a while, even sharing a house (gasp) for a couple of years, it wasn’t until after our marriage in 2012 that the notion of a photo wall, or some collective photo ensemble, wall or otherwise, came up. I had some initial reservations, though mostly because I pictured an entire display focused around our wedding, which while lovely in other people’s homes, felt a bit much for my taste. The reservations were also as much about wall space being at a premium in our home…we have a considerable amount of paintings and not enough wall space as it is.

    However, for one of Jill’s Christmas presents, I decided to give her a wall, since after all, I too thought it would be nice if done well and had faith that her amazing eye would find the right balance.

    Oh, you see, what I was giving her was wall space in the family room where two paintings were already hanging, buying all of the frames (which she still insisted on sharing the cost), arranging them, and installing everything. The photo selection was still in her court…which also helped assure her that she’d love it.

    I’m sure there are countless DIYs on the topic and I have no idea whether our approach was any different, but what follows in the additional blog posts as this outgrew a single post all too quickly are my tips for making a family photo wall and how we got to the finished product you see above from something as crazy looking as you see here.

    Photo Wall FPO Layout
    Photo Wall FPO Layout

    Cheers