Unique Photo Hanging Ideas for Your Wall

Showcasing your favorite photos is a beautiful way to customize your home design. For a genuinely artistic display, look beyond the photos you hang and consider how you hang them. Getting creative with your photo displays is a fantastic way to make your house a home and personalize your living space.

Here are some of the best unique photo hanging ideas for your wall.

Create a Clock with Photos

One of the most original ways to decorate a large, open wall is with a custom clock. You can get a clock kit on Amazon and mount it into your wall for a stunning (and useful) display. Instead of opting for decals or paint to signify the time, use twelve photos in place of numerals. 

The options are limitless when choosing which images to use. You can take a seasonal approach and select your favorite image from each month of the year. Alternatively, you could choose an annual family photo capturing how your family has changed and grown over the past twelve years. Another option is to consider what the different times represent for you. 12 o’clock could be a photo of you and a friend sharing lunch at your favorite restaurant. Bedtime could be a fun pajama photo.

Lean Your Photos

Leaning photos and artwork add a casual-yet-luxurious feel to your interior design. This is an excellent option if you want to pick your favorite family photo to be commissioned as a painting on canvas and accent it with smaller pieces. 

There are a few options for leaning your photos without worrying about damage. The first is to install small shelves with a lipped edge to keep your photos in place on the wall. Alternatively, you can stack them on a side table and use the extra space to add to the tableau. Finally, if you have a large, unused space, you can set them on the floor to lean against the bottom of the wall for a more nomadic, transient feel. 

Instagram-Inspired Photo Grid

There’s something clean and crisp about the iconic 1x1 squares that Instagram made famous. Capture this same aesthetic on your wall by creating a grid that you can add to over time. Print your favorite photos on square blocks for a 3D effect, and be sure to hang them with perfectly even spacing.

This unique photo display works exceptionally well on small, thin walls that are challenging to decorate— the top of the stairs in a split entry, for example.

Small Photos within an Empty Frame

Rather than expanding and framing your photos, leave them as single, small prints. Instead, invest in a large, ornate frame and remove the backing to hang on your wall. Then, use an adhesive to mount your unframed photos in a collage style within the large frame. This unique photo hanging method allows you to showcase your favorites and easily swap them out over time

Create a Geometric Web

Geometric shapes and accent pieces have been a hot interior design trend in recent years. You can capture the essence of this trend by creating your own geometric web using twine or golden craft string and tacks or finishing nails. 

It can be helpful to outline your preferred pattern before putting holes in the wall. Sketch it on paper then add dots to the wall using a pencil as a template. Alternatively, you can take a random approach and see what spontaneous artwork appears. 

You need to think outside the frame hanging your photos in a unique and creative way. Try one of these five techniques to display your treasured images the way they deserve.

Interview - Isabelle Dervaux, Family Photo Curator

Photo Credit: Tamara Gillon

If a photo is worth a thousand words what happens when you have thousands of photos? Most if not all of our clients ask us what to do with their photos. First, we want to get them all together and store them safely (not in a hot attic or wet garage) and then we can decide what “action” applies to the photos. For some simply keeping them safe is the next and final step but for some other ideas we spoke with Photo Organizer Isabelle Dervaux.

What do you do for your clients?

I help families make sense of the tens of thousands of photos they accumulate over time and create systems that keep them organized. We now take more than 3–5,000 photos per year. Those photos pile up, and given enough time can cause a certain amount of what I call digital anxiety. So you could say I also relieve them of that anxiety while I help them make meaningful projects from the pictures they love.

How did you get started?

It actually started as I began organizing my own family photos when we moved from San Francisco to New York. It was difficult at first to find all of those pictures—scattered among boxes of print photos and digital photos on hard drives, old laptops, and even thumb drives—and once all the photos were in a single location, to not get overwhelmed by hundreds of scans or entire collections that had been duplicated by accident! But there were also moments of joy, like discovering the digital photos of a weekend camping when the kids were young that I thought were lost and now miraculously appeared.

I developed my own methods to get through all the road-blocks and when finished with several projects, felt a real sense of accomplishment as well as a weight lifted from my shoulders. I realized other people must be facing the same issues with their own family photos that I had faced and started working with others to help them organize and find joy in their own photo collections.

If someone is interested, what is the process?

First, we schedule a free 30-minute phone consultation. We have a conversation about what’s important: do they want to organize their digital collection to make photos easier to find? Are they looking to design family albums for their young children? Are they concerned about boxes of old family pictures gathering dust? Once we’ve determined the challenges they’re facing, we set priorities and goals and I recommend a strategy that suits their needs.

I like working side-by-side with my clients—I often work at their homes, so we can share a more detailed view of the family, who the relatives are and what events are most important. We work in manageable chunks, usually once a week over the course of a month, but occasionally for three or more months if we’re dealing with a larger print collection or bigger project.

When tackling a digital photo collection, we start by tracking down every device and storage system the pictures may be found on. Once we’ve gathered and moved the photos to one place, we find a strategy that best suits the client and start organizing and curating their collection with a concrete step-by-step action plan. I teach my clients just enough tech shortcuts and insights to give them the confidence and tools they need to continue organizing their photos, and empower them to make beautiful slideshows and albums on their own.

What makes you different?

Beyond organizing their pictures and sorting out years of photos in a systematic way, our work together also becomes an opportunity to teach my clients about photography and design. I come to this work through a long career as an illustrator, and I love to share the same principles with my clients that I taught in my illustration class at Parsons School of Design. When we find great photos in the course of our work, we analyze what makes them so good—the light, the emotion, the composition, for example—so they can then go on to recreate those same conditions again, on their own. When my clients learn how to recognize their best photos, they also learn how to take better photos, and that reduces their need to edit later on. So the benefits of what I teach my clients extend far beyond the actual time I spend with them.

What is the storytelling aspect of photo organizing?

I’m always on the lookout for engaging, strong images that will provoke conversations and foster deeper connections between family members and friends. Photos are a means of communication. I teach my clients to really look at and read their images rather than just viewing them as one-off snapshots. The way images are edited, grouped and sequenced has a big impact on a photo album. When making an album, you’re making it for yourself, but you’re also creating it for others to view. That means creating a story arc and giving context to the time period, the people in the photos, and information that will keep the viewer hooked—you want them to keep them interested and turning the pages without yawning!

Can you recall any projects that stood out or were especially exciting—or challenging?

I once helped a client find a year’s worth of photos she thought she had lost, including pictures of her daughter as a newborn through her first birthday. I was so happy to help a mom get her daughter’s first year back!

Going through photos can be especially difficult if you’ve recently lost a close family member or friend. I have helped soften the process for clients who want to honor the memory of those who are gone—together we work on finding the most expressive pictures, and create photo stories by which to remember their loved ones.

On a lighter note, I work with many families who travel all over the world. I have gone to virtually every continent through my work, and I love discovering new places as if I were there.

Invisible Organizing

We have all heard a picture is worth a thousand words. And never before has that saying been more true than in the brave new world of social media. Professional Organizing lends itself to amazing before and after pictures. There is no doubt that you get a wow factor transforming a garage filled with 30 years of clutter into a useful space with room for the cars and lined with finished systems. However,  sometimes the before and after pictures can look exactly the same. How is that possible? Good organizing isn't about Instagram, it is fundamentally about being able to find what you are looking for, so you can be productive and efficient.

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In most cases people don't have chronic or extreme clutter, they have busy lives and lack of systems (containers, baskets, hooks, etc...) They may have a cleaning person or simply want their surfaces free from clutter.  In these cases the before picture is often the same as the after picture until you open the drawers and closet doors. When people get the house ready for guests or just want a clean look they tend to turn to "make it go away" areas, hidden from view. These black holes give the space a neat clutter-free look but don't tell the whole story. At House to Home Organizing we usually start projects by focusing on the closets, garage, attic or basement. We want to free up usable space in order to create homes for your items to live. We want you to be able to find what you are looking for and that means looking at the whole picture. Additionally, by emptying the hidden areas we can review every item in context so our clients can make regret free decisions. Great before and after photos can make people say wow, but don't forget to see the whole picture.

Interview - Plustek

Many of our clients ask us what to do with photos, slides and other potential items from the archives. We turned to an expert and spoke with Mark from manufacturer Plustek.

A lot of people have thousands of photos at home, do you have a recommendation besides a flatbed scanner?

The Plustek ePhoto is the ideal solution for scanning photos. It only takes about 2.5 seconds to scan a typical 4x6 print and the scanning process is very straight forward and easy to understand. You simply place the photo in the ePhoto and it is automatically scanned.  To give you an example, I recently scanned about 1000 photos and it took me about 45 minutes.

For people who have negatives or slides do you have advice for the non-professional?

Our OpticFilm 135 is frequently used by people that own or have inherited a large slide collection. The scanner features a motorized transport that lets you scan 4 slides at a time in about 40 seconds. The software that comes with the scanner is designed around ease of use.  You load the slides, press the scan button on the scanner and the images are transferred to the software where you can do some basic editing.

What are your suggestions for family members who, either by choice or by fact that they are the only one who will do it,  are the family archivist or genealogist?

The family genealogist is typically presented with many different types of items that need to be scanned. These can range from historical documents, letters, photos, photo books, and memorabilia.  We find that genealogists will use the type of scanner that matches the task. For example, if you are scanning priceless historical documents that you do not want to be damaged, a scanner like or OpticPro A320 or OpticSlim 1180 is used. If they are scanning books, then either our OpticBook A300 or OpticBook 4800 is used. Some even use our portable MobileOffice S410 if they need to scan documents away from their home or office. 

Office paper can be a big challenge do you have any solutions?

Scanning paper is half of the challenge, the other half is managing that paper. Our eScan A150 is a standalone scanner that you can use without a PC. You connect it to your home network via Wi-Fi or Ethernet cable and then you can scan directly to a PC or Mac in your house or anyone of the following cloud services: Evernote, Office 365, Google Drive, Box.Net, Dropbox or SharePoint. The benefit of scanning directly to something like Evernote is that it’s easy to use you can have a complete document management system for a very low cost. You just load your documents in the scanner, and tap the Evernote button and all your scans are safely stored in the cloud.

The eScan A150 is a commercial quality scanner at a price affordable to both home owners and businesses. It’s used in many business applications including: healthcare, legal, retail stores, financial, in addition to home offices.

What if I don't have any technical know how, should I be scared?

While we offer many solutions for business and professionals, we also offer solutions like the ones mentioned above that are designed for ease of use.  But even more importantly, we are here to help. If you have a question about your scanning workflow or scanning software, want to know about best practices or you have a problem, you can contact our technical support team by phone or email at no cost.