Operator's manual — original car art
Petrol & Ink

The wall

Size, frame and room. What each format does to the same picture, and which one the wall in question actually wants.

A black frame on a dark wall holding a blank sheet edge to edge, with a bare stretched canvas, an aluminium panel and a plywood sheet below it.

The picture's settled; this is everything after it. How big the thing on the wall ends up, what a frame adds to that, and which surface suits an image that's mostly dark. The two decisions people get wrong most often are buying one size down from the one that would have worked, and choosing a frame before measuring the wall. Both are cheaper to fix here than after it arrives.

The reading, in order

If it is not for you

Everything above assumes the wall is yours. The gift takes the harder version, where you are buying for somebody whose interest you do not share.

Written by Craig Fearn, Petrol & Ink. Last updated .