A gallery wall of Audubon prints connected the homeowner to her St. Francisville roots.

A collage of winning LSU football and baseball championships (far right) are featured in the dining area at a fishing camp.

Art purchased at the Three Rivers Art Festival in Covington is thoughtfully placed above a bed.

A child’s art project can be place in a mini gallery wall to invoke joy and bring in some extra color.

A gallery wall of Audubon prints connected the homeowner to her St. Francisville roots.

Putting together a gallery wall is a great way to display a collection of photos and art and can be a less expensive alternative to hanging a larger piece in your home.

Below, New Orleans interior designers offered unique tips on how to create a standout gallery wall that will impress your guests and invoke your own personal joy.

“The first [and] foremost rule is balance,” says Diana Eustis, owner of Lintot, an interior design studio and shop on Magazine Street. “That can be working around one large piece or having two large pieces set apart and then filling in the gaps with smaller to medium size pieces.”

Elizabeth Walther, an interior designer who owns Design Studio LLC in Covington, says a good rule of thumb is to start with a center image.

“I walk my way left and right from that,” Walther says.

A collage of winning LSU football and baseball championships (far right) are featured in the dining area at a fishing camp.

Designers suggest incorporating shadow boxes to display personal hobbies and special memories.

“I read once that this designer loved ribbons and she would cut different color ribbons and frame them. I’ve had people that had a golf ball in a shadow box because that golf ball was something they won a tournament with,” Walther says. “You can make a collage to make the space feel more like your own. Art doesn’t have to be expensive. It just needs to make us feel something.”

Eustis says she’s worked on gallery walls with dried botanical prints in a collection as well as Audubon prints.

“What's cool about a gallery wall is that in many instances, you can take something that's inexpensive and make it look really dramatic,” she says.

Art purchased at the Three Rivers Art Festival in Covington is thoughtfully placed above a bed.

Mixing and matching frames and artwork in the same color family helps with consistency in a gallery wall.

“An old frame that's ornate next to another simpler frame helps if all of them were wood or all of them were gold and you can add a black one here or there,” Walther says.

For an even more streamlined look, Eustis says floating frames and clear acrylic frames with no border can make photos stand out. Mixing matte and glossy photos adds subtle texture to the wall.

A child’s art project can be place in a mini gallery wall to invoke joy and bring in some extra color.

Designers suggest testing the look of a gallery wall on the floor before nailing on the wall.

“Line everything up on the floor and play around looking at it from (an aerial) vantage point,” Eustis says. “You can even stand on like a step ladder to get an overall scope of it.”

A gallery wall is best in a living room or other large space where it can be admired.

“A living room, foyer, hallway, bedroom or a library can all be great spaces for a gallery wall,” Eustis says. “I wouldn't recommend doing a gallery wall on a narrow hallway; I think having a space where you can stand back and look at a large wall is important, because it’s like a story that's being told.”

Incorporating New Orleans memorabilia, including paraphernalia that celebrates sports milestones can be a great way to personalize a space.

“At our personal (fishing) camp, we have a gallery wall of LSU’s national championships — that's an easy gallery wall to do,” Walther says. “We collected all the newspaper stories from the football games that we won and put all those together.”

“What I love about this area is that everyone likes uniqueness and being different,” she adds.

Eustis also suggests changing out photos or other decorative items for the season.

“It’s like rearranging your bedroom as a kid and making it feel like a new space,” she says.

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