Do you have a large wall in your home that would be perfect for a gallery wall, but you aren’t quite sure where to start? Don’t worry, we’re here to help! In addition to Anthology being a custom frame shop and portrait photography studio, we also specialize in designing custom gallery walls from start to finish to make your space feel like your own. We work with individuals as well as designers to understand what the goal of the space is, and we go from there! We can work with you to schedule a photography session to update your family photos at our in-house studio (or on location if you prefer), use your already existing digital files to print off high quality prints to frame in our Downtown Englewood, Colorado workshop, or create custom frames for your fine art pieces to make the space truly your own. We will then work to arrange the delivery and installation of your pieces to make sure that every detail is covered so you don’t have to lift a finger at any point during the process.
Our process is meant to take gallery walls from start to finish, including the framing of your pieces. If you have previously framed art in your home that you are simply looking to hang up on your walls, we will refer you Friday Works. They are professional art installers who specialize in installing fine art in the Denver, Boulder, Vail, and Aspen areas and they do a fantastic job. We frequently partner with them for installation of pieces we complete, and may even utilize them in installing the gallery wall we design for you!
Gallery Wall Types and Examples
Before we get into the details of how we’re going to create your wall, let’s go over what a gallery wall even is and the types of gallery walls we can create for you. You’ll sometimes hear a gallery wall and salon wall used interchangeably, however there is a difference between the two. A gallery wall is inspired by modern day museum practices, and is a curated arrangement of framed art or photographs displayed together on a wall with consistent spacing to create a cohesive display of the pieces in your home. Historically, salon walls displayed art from the top to the bottom of a wall with minimal spacing in between, creating a visual tapestry of both framed art and objects on a wall. There are a few different types of gallery wall designs to review when deciding which is best for your space, including salon inspired walls, that we’ll discuss below.
Grid Layout: A very clean style of gallery wall where everything is symmetrical and spaced evenly apart, often in frames that are identical in size with the same color mats and frames.
Salon Style: A more modern take on its historic roots, a salon style wall today combines an eclectic mix of different frames, colors, and sizes hung in a variety of orientations with intentional spacing.
Directional: Creates a linear flow with asymmetric angles to guide your eye along architectural features like stairwells, hallways, or transitions between rooms. Directional gallery walls can be either grid or salon style in their aesthetic.
The Design and Creation Process
Gallery Walls with Photographs
The gallery wall creation process starts with setting up a consultation. We will set up a time that is convenient for you to come to your home to get a better understanding of the scope of your space, take photographs of the wall(s), and gather the necessary measurements to start the design process. We’ll also take this time to get to know more about you, your family, and your overall design aesthetic to inform how we will approach your customized gallery wall. If we’re planning an updated family portrait photography session we’ll discuss whether you’d like a studio or location session, what you should plan to wear for the photos to fit into your home’s aesthetic, and how many photographs we will use in the space you have chosen. If you’d like to use photographs you already have printed that you’d like to incorporate into the space as well, we will take them with us back to our studio to scan and send off to create high quality prints; we will do the same with any digital files you’d like to use, and have you email them to us during the consultation.
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Gallery Walls with Fine Art
Art gallery walls require a bit of a different approach, depending on the size and the amount of pieces you’d like to have framed. We will still set up a consultation with you to come to your home to review the space, gather measurements, and take photographs so we can mock up your design just as we would a photographic gallery wall. The biggest difference here is that we will need to set up a time at your consultation for you to bring your pieces in to review their condition and go over the mounting, framing, and mat options for each specific piece to ensure the frames will best compliment the art. For smaller pieces, we may be able to transport them back with us to the shop after your consultation and send you design options from there if you’d prefer. For larger pieces, we will need to coordinate their delivery to our workshop and begin the design process from there.
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You don’t have to stick to one specific type of piece for your walls either! You can incorporate photography with fine art for your gallery, and we can work with you to update existing framing packages to include as well. If you have any pieces you have had previously framed that you would like to include in your gallery wall we will discuss updating their framing, matting, and/or glazing to bring them up to conservation grade standards and to match the design aesthetic of the overall project.
Once the consultation is over, we will use the photographs and measurements we collected at your home to input them into our design software to mockup what you can expect the final product to look like. The mockup will be specific to dimensions of your wall and will show you the different sizes and types of frames we will create, as well as how far they will be spaced from each other for you to review. We will send you mockups of frame and mat options for you to choose from, however if you’d like to come into the shop to look at options in person we can schedule you an appointment to come in before we leave your home. Once we have approval on the design, the fun begins! All of the frame packages will be taken from start to finish using only conservation and archival grade materials at our studio in Downtown Englewood, Colorado.
In 2020 when Palace Arms inside the Brownstone Hotel in Downtown Denver closed for renovations, we had the opportunity to reframe several pieces they had hanging in the restaurant. On the left is the mockup design of the frames we selected to update the art before the installation, and on the right is the final installation of the updated frame packages of the pieces.
Installation
How we approach installation for your gallery wall depends on the overall scope of the project. For smaller gallery walls, we will schedule a time to come back to your home with the pieces and do the installation ourselves. For larger walls that have many pieces that may be larger, we will coordinate an installation with an outside company to deliver and hang the pieces. As mentioned above we frequently partner with Friday Works, however we also work with Colorado Art Services or JDP Arts depending on availability and what works best with your schedule to complete the gallery wall process.
