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How to Create a Feature Wall Photo Collage

A photo collage is a collection of pictures hung together to tell a story, evoke a mood, express personality, and entertain the viewer. While their arrangement may appear tossed together, photo collages should be carefully designed before they’re hung. It just takes a little know-how, and a few tips, for amateur home decorators to make their decorative wall art pop the way interior designers can. Here we guide you through how to create your own photo collage:

1. Organizing before you hang your pictures.
2. Designing your picture collage to tell a cohesive story.
3. Hanging your collage as you’ve designed it.

Organizing Your Photo Collage Material

Hanging a photo collage is a little more complicated than hanging a single picture, but it can be rewarding to create your own decorative wall art. Organizing and preparing your space, supplies, and photos first will prepare you for success.

1. Choose your feature wall

1. Pick a wall that you’ve been staring at, wondering what to do with it—hang a photo collage there, obviously!
2. Take measurements of the blank space you have available.
3. Note where eye-height (1.45m or 57”) is on the available space.

2. Gather your images

1. Decide on the size of your collage within the available space.
2. Choose a theme—reminders of travel, memories of family and friends, even images in a favourite colour palette to create a mood.
3. Go through your photos for your favourites, print (or order prints of) digital pictures, and select artwork.

TIP: While choosing images, keep the number manageable to make room for white space around pictures on your feature wall.

3. Frame your images

• To set off images, contrast frame style and colour.
• To blend frames into pictures, coordinate style and colour.
• To create symmetry for pictures that don’t look like one theme, choose a set of all-matching frames.
• To add personality, use different frames for different photos so they become part of the picture story.

4. Collect your tools

• Pencil (or erasable marker)
• Painter’s tape
• Level
• Measuring tape/ruler
• Hanging hardware (nails, pins, hooks, etc.)
• Hammer/screwdriver (as required by hardware)

Designing Your Photo Story

Hanging collage photos haphazardly may seem easier, but can result in bad placement, jarring imagery, and changed minds. Plan your design first to save time, effort, and materials—and prevent unnecessary holes in your walls. Do-overs are never easier than doing it well once.

1. Prepare your arrangement

1. Pick a flat surface, like a table or floor, that has the same amount of room available as your wall.
2. Mark off any unusual shapes or blocked off areas on your feature wall (furniture, lamps, shadows) where they correspond on your flat surface.
3. Determine the centre point (half the width of your available space and roughly at eye height) on your surface.

2. Create your photo story design

1. Centre the most important image(s) on your flat surface.
2. Position photos around your centre picture(s) as you will hang them.
3. Use distance between frames to show how photos are connected and add interest with varied white space.
   • Place related images closer together, less-important or less-related pictures farther apart.
4. Mirror the proportions on each side and top to bottom of your collage. Your design doesn’t have to be symmetrical, but it should balance.
   • Group different size frames to have the same visual “weight”—for instance, two half-sized pictures can balance one larger image.
5. Adjust approximate eye height and collage width to keep white space and avoid hiding images in blocked-off areas.
6. Play with the arrangement until satisfied.
7. Record the arrangement:
   • Take a picture or note which pictures are where
   • measure distance between frames and how far apart they are from the centre point.

TIP: Always measure each position and distance on your design and wall in the same way (hanger to hanger, centre to centre, or corner to corner).

3. Prepare your picture frames

• Measure to find the centre on each frame and the distance from the top of frame to the top of its hanging point.
• Mark the hanging point on the front of the frame with painter’s tape or with erasable marker for positioning on the wall.

Hanging Your Photo Collage Together

Once you’ve arranged your design and prepared your framed photos, you’re ready to hang your collage. Follow these steps to move the photo story from your flat surface to your wall.

TIP: Place green painter’s tape where you’re measuring instead of marking directly on the wall, so you can readjust pieces or move marks, if necessary.

1. Mark your central photo

1. Mark the design’s centre point, adjusted for eye height, on the wall.
2. Measure from that centre point and mark the top, bottom and sides of where you want the central picture’s frame.
   • The centre wall point should align with your picture’s centre, not its frame top or bottom.
3. Measure down the wall from the frame top and mark where the frame’s hanging point should be.
4. Place the image where it should go to double-check the position, then slide it sideways to compare the hanger mark on the frame and the wall.
5. Adjust and re-mark the hanger point if necessary. Note the correction and apply those changes to your measurements for the next pictures.

TIP: When hanging many different sized images, especially for larger collections, cut newspaper to size and tape each mock picture to the wall to verify placement.

2. Hang your first photo in the centre

1. Install the wall hardware for the central picture.
2. Hang your first collage image.
3. Use the hung photo to mark the next picture’s position from your design.

3. Hang other pictures in a radiating motion outward

1. Mark your collage from the first hung picture, in a circular, top-to-bottom, or left-then-right pattern (as appropriate for your design).
2. Use a level to align pictures that are on the same plane, horizontally or vertically, for your design pattern.
3. Measure and mark each photo’s position from your design, double-check, and hang as in step 2 before moving to the next picture.

Enjoy Your Personally Designed Photo Collage!

By following these steps, you will create a gorgeous feature wall of related pictures that work together to tell a story about you. Whether it’s adventures to remember, loved ones smiling out, or random images that just make you happy, hanging a picture collage can be the start of (re)decorating your home, or a fantastic finish.

Check out IKEAs range of photo frame options—collage frames, coordinating frames, mismatched frames, and framed artwork—to add interest to your home and share your story. Or to hang pictures in a more contemporary style, watch an instructional video on using printed templates.

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