Office Wall Art: Scale, Height and Lighting

An office wall is the surface people look at most after the desk and the screen, and yet it is usually the last to be planned. Choosing office wall art is a different job from choosing art for a home: the piece is seen by a whole team and by visitors, it is viewed both standing and seated, and it sits under flat overhead lighting. This guide helps with three decisions: what scale suits the wall, how high the piece should hang and how it should be lit.

Why office wall art is its own subject

At home, a picture is usually hung for one seating arrangement. In an office the same wall is walked past, sat opposite in meetings and sometimes used as the background of a video call. Rooms are larger, ceilings are often higher, and the light is flatter and cooler. The walls differ too: plasterboard partitions, glass partitions, or the wall of a rented floor that nobody wants drilled. How several pieces are arranged together is covered in arranging a wall with tennis-themed art; this article deals only with what is specific to the office: scale, height and lighting.

Read the space first: five office walls

Reception

This is the first wall a visitor sees, and it is viewed standing, from a few metres away. One clear piece, or a calm series of two or three, works well here.

Meeting room

Viewers are seated, and the furthest chair may be 4–5 metres from the wall. A single small piece disappears at that distance; a series or a wider arrangement is needed. The wall that carries the screen or the whiteboard is left empty.

Corridor

The work is seen up close and in passing. Viewing distance is usually 1–1.5 metres; medium-sized pieces in an evenly spaced row give the corridor its rhythm.

Open-plan area

The wall is long and broken up by bays. Rather than hanging one piece opposite every team, dividing the wall into two or three focal points gives a calmer result.

Private office

The wall opposite the desk is the one the occupant sees; the wall behind it is the one visitors and the camera see. The two walls are decided separately.

Scale: how large should office wall art be

Three practical measures help. The first is the wall ratio: on an empty wall, the total width of the piece or group should cover roughly 60–75 per cent of the usable wall width. The second is the furniture ratio: a piece hung above a console, sofa or cabinet should be about two thirds to three quarters as wide as the furniture beneath it. The third is viewing distance: a piece reads comfortably from about 1.5–2 times its diagonal.

Take Aurecort's standard format, 50 × 70 cm. Its diagonal is about 86 cm, so a single piece is comfortably viewed from 1.3–1.7 metres. That is enough for a corridor or a small room. On a wide wall the same format is scaled up as a series: two portrait pieces with an 8 cm gap cover 108 cm; three cover 166 cm. Above a 160 cm console, two pieces (108 cm) sit at the two-thirds ratio. On an empty 2.5-metre meeting-room wall, a series of three (166 cm) fills about two thirds of the wall. The gap between pieces is kept within 5–10 cm and stays the same across the whole series.

To see which surface and which series suit the wall, the works in the Framed Art Series can be compared at the same size.

Height: how high to hang wall art in an office

The measure used in galleries applies here as well: the centre of the piece sits about 145–150 cm (roughly 57–59 inches) above the floor. That is close to the eye level of a standing adult and is the right starting point for corridors and reception areas.

Where viewers are seated, the centre comes down. In meeting rooms and waiting areas, lowering the centre to 130–140 cm lets a seated person look without tilting the head. Above furniture, the measure is taken from the furniture: 15–25 cm is left between its top edge and the bottom edge of the frame. More than that detaches the piece from the furniture; less crowds it.

A small calculation finds the nail position: take the centre height, add half the height of the piece and subtract the distance from the top edge to the hanging point. For a piece 70 cm tall, with its centre at 145 cm and its hanger 10 cm below the top edge, the nail goes in at 145 + 35 − 10 = 170 cm. In a series, it is the centres that share one line, not the top edges.

On a wall that will serve as a video-call background, the final decision is made through the camera. Sit in the chair and take a test shot: the piece should enter the frame above shoulder level without being cut off behind the head.

Lighting: wall art under office light

Offices usually have flat, even general lighting of around 300–500 lux on the working plane. That light is good for reading, but it does not bring out the work on the wall. For a piece to be noticed, it is enough for the light falling on it to be roughly three times that of its surroundings; more is not needed. Museums keep light-sensitive works on paper at about 50 lux and more robust works at around 150–200 lux. An office is not a museum, but the principle is the same: the less light a piece receives, and the shorter the time, the later it fades. So accent lighting is chosen no stronger than necessary and is switched off outside working hours.

The colour and quality of the light matter too. Warm white (2700–3000 K) warms clay tones and wooden frames; neutral white (about 4000 K) matches the general lighting of most offices and shows greens and blues more accurately. Two different colour temperatures are not mixed on the same wall. For colours to look right, a source with a colour rendering index (CRI) of 90 or above is chosen.

For the angle, the practical measure is 30 degrees: the spotlight is aimed at the centre of the piece at about 30 degrees from the vertical. A steeper angle throws the shadow of the frame onto the work; a shallower one causes glare on the glass.

Reflection and daylight

A glazed or glossy piece hung directly opposite a window reflects that window all day. Such pieces go on a wall at right angles to the window; a matt surface suits the wall facing it. How surfaces behave in light is compared in acrylic print vs canvas. A wall in direct sun is not a good place for any work; where it cannot be avoided, archival materials such as UV glass and acid-free mounts slow fading but do not stop it.

Theme and series: a calm language for the office

Work on an office wall is seen by the same people for hours every day, so high-contrast, busy compositions tire quickly. Calm tennis themes such as court lines, surface colours and plain geometry stand up to long viewing. Choosing pieces from the same series gives different rooms a shared language. In an office that follows tennis closely, the wall also starts conversations; the week's tournaments can be followed in Aurecort's tennis this week piece.

Step by step: planning office wall art

Step one is to measure the wall: width, ceiling height and, if there is furniture beneath, its width and height.

Step two is to establish how the wall is viewed: standing, seated or in passing, and how many metres away is the furthest viewer?

Step three is the decision on scale: one piece, a pair or a series of three? The total width is worked out from the 60–75 per cent ratio.

Step four is the paper template. Sheets cut to the size of the pieces are fixed to the wall with masking tape and left in place for a day or two; the decision is made on the wall, not on a screen.

Step five is height and nail position: the centre line is set and the nail position for each piece is marked using the calculation above.

Step six is a fixing that suits the wall. Plasterboard takes plasterboard anchors, brick and concrete take suitable plugs; on walls that cannot be drilled, or where the arrangement changes often, a hanging rail near the ceiling carries the pieces without drilling the wall. In a rented office, building management is asked before any drilling.

Step seven is the light: once the pieces are up, the spotlights are aimed and glare is checked at different times of day.

Where several pieces are required, quantity, surface and delivery terms are settled at the quotation stage.

Common mistakes

Choosing a piece that is too small is the most common mistake: one small piece on a wide wall makes the wall look emptier still.

Hanging too high is the second. A high ceiling is no reason to raise the work; the measure is eye level, not the ceiling.

Judging the gaps in a series by eye breaks the rhythm of the row; gaps are measured and kept equal.

Hanging a glazed piece opposite a window turns it into a mirror for the whole day.

Squeezing a piece in beside a fire extinguisher, an electrical panel, switches or emergency exit signs weakens both the piece and the sign; the area around such equipment is left clear.

In a narrow corridor, a deep frame that projects from the wall catches the shoulders of people passing; a slim profile is chosen for narrow passages.

Choosing work in a different style for every room makes the office look scattered; one series or a shared palette is enough.

Frequently asked questions

What size should office wall art be?

The total width of the piece or series should cover roughly 60–75 per cent of the wall or, above furniture, two thirds to three quarters of the furniture. A single 50 × 70 cm piece suits a narrow wall; a pair or a series of three in the same format suits a wide one.

How high should art be hung in an office?

On walls viewed standing, the centre of the piece sits 145–150 cm above the floor. In meeting rooms and waiting areas viewed seated, the centre drops to 130–140 cm; above furniture, 15–25 cm is left between the furniture and the bottom edge.

Is general office lighting enough for wall art?

It is enough for the piece to be seen, not for it to stand out. A single spotlight with high colour rendering, aimed at about 30 degrees from the vertical, gives sufficient emphasis for most walls.

Can art be hung in a rented office without drilling the wall?

Hanging rail systems fitted near the ceiling carry pieces on thin wires and allow them to be moved; the rail itself also needs the approval of building management. Adhesive hooks can be used for light pieces, provided the weight of the piece stays within the load limit stated by the manufacturer.

For canvas and acrylic printing and signage outside the tennis collection, see the sister brand Aurecort Reklam.

Aurecort