What size wall art for every room: the golden-ratio table.

The rule, and why it works

A picture over a piece of furniture looks right when its width is about 60 percent of the furniture’s width — more precisely, the width divided by the golden ratio, 1.618. Narrower and the picture looks like an afterthought; wider and it competes with the furniture instead of belonging to it. The proportion is the same one that makes the works themselves feel settled, applied one level up: the furniture and the picture become a golden rectangle together.

For height, the second rule: over furniture, leave 15 to 25 cm between the top of the sofa, bed or sideboard and the bottom of the frame. On a bare wall, put the centre of the picture at 150 cm from the floor. The hanging guide covers the placing in more detail; this one is about size.

Living room: over the sofa

Sofas run from about 160 cm for a two-seater to 240 cm or more for a large three-seater. Divide by 1.618 and you get the picture: roughly 100 cm for the small sofa, 150 cm for the large one. A single landscape-format work does the job best; if you prefer a pair, treat the two together with a 5 to 8 cm gap as one picture and size the pair to the rule. The Sovereign Lounge was made for exactly this wall — wide, dark ground, the spiral resting a little off centre where the eye lands from the other side of the room.

Bedroom: over the bed

The bed is the one place where people consistently hang too small, because the headboard is wide and the picture was bought for somewhere else. Measure the bed frame, not the mattress. A pair of portrait-format works over a double bed is a classic and works with the rule when the pair is sized together. Over a king bed a single large work is calmer than a group. For a bedroom, the pale works — the White Fibonacci collection, Ivory Nautilus Minimalist, The Celestial Navigator — hold the room quiet; the gold-on-black works are for a bedroom that is dressed dark.

Dining room and kitchen

A dining table is measured when you are sitting, so the picture goes lower — centre at 135 to 140 cm — and it can be wider than the sofa rule suggests because there is no back to clear. Size it to the table or the sideboard, whichever the picture sits over. Landscape format over a table, portrait over a narrow sideboard. In a kitchen, keep the picture away from the hob and sink and use aluminium or acrylic rather than paper; the printing guide explains the surfaces.

Home office: over the desk

Desks are 120 to 160 cm wide, so the picture is 75 to 100 cm — larger than most people put there. This is where the construction works belong: The Sovereign Ledger, The Chronos Equation, The Celestial Blueprint, precise enough to sit beside drawings and screens, dark enough not to glare on video calls. Hang it so its centre is at eye level when seated, about 120 cm, and offset it from the screen rather than centring it behind your head.

Hallway, stairs and bathroom

A hallway is seen sideways and in passing, so a run of two or three portrait works at equal spacing beats one large piece; size each to about a third of the wall length between doors and keep the tops aligned. On a staircase, hang along a line parallel to the stair, centres at 150 cm above each tread, and step the sizes down as the stair rises. In a bathroom the constraint is moisture: acrylic or aluminium only, never paper behind glass, and a size around 60 percent of the vanity width — The Golden Aperture on acrylic reads well in the low light.

Pairs and triptychs

The rule for groups: size the group, not the pieces. Decide the total width from the table above, then divide it among the works with 5 to 8 cm gaps. A pair of equal works over a 200 cm sofa is two 58 cm pieces with a 6 cm gap — call it two 60 × 80 prints. A triptych over the same sofa is three 38 cm pieces, which is why triptychs suit big sofas and wide walls, not small ones. If the works are different sizes, put the largest at the golden section of the group — 38 percent in from one end — and grow the others outward.

From the table to a file

Every download on this site is a full-resolution file of roughly 9,000 pixels on the long side, which prints sharp at 150 cm and acceptably beyond. So the table above is not a list of what is available; it is a list of what to ask the printer for. The nearest standard sizes are 50 × 70, 60 × 80, 70 × 100, 100 × 70, 120 × 80 and 150 × 100 — every row in this guide lands on one of them. If you would like to see the choice before you print, send a photograph of the wall and its width and you will get three works shown in place at the size the wall wants.