What Size Star Map Fits Your Wall?

It's tempting to choose a size by picturing the print alone on an empty wall. Art nearly always hangs over something, though: a sofa, a bed, a desk, a hallway table. Measure that instead, and the size mostly chooses itself.

Which sizes are there?

Two shapes, each in a range: 2:3 rectangles from 12 × 18 to 40 × 60 inches, and squares from 12 × 12 to 40 × 40.

The studio shows the sizes each view comes in, and it draws every view at its true proportions, so the shape you see is the shape that arrives. It also shows what each size costs to send to you, beside the price, because a 40 × 60 costs a good deal more to ship than a 12 × 18.

How big should it be over a sofa or a bed?

About two-thirds the width of the furniture beneath it, with its centre near eye height.

Rules of thumbWidth ≈ ⅔ of the furniture's.
Centre ≈ 57 in (145 cm) from the floor.
Bottom edge 8–10 in (20–25 cm) above a sofa back.

Those are decorators' rules of thumb rather than laws, but they're good ones. A three-seat sofa about seven feet wide wants something near 56 inches across. That falls between our two largest Panoramas. The 48 × 32 sits just inside the mark and hangs comfortably at eye height. The 60 × 40 runs a little past it, and it's tall enough that the sofa rule wins: keep its bottom edge 8–10 inches above the sofa back and let its centre rise. That's the size for a long wall or a high ceiling.

Beds are narrower. A US queen and a UK king are both about 150 cm wide, so two-thirds is about 40 inches. A 36 × 24 Panorama comes close, and a 40 × 40 Square or Dome lands right on it, over the middle of the headboard.

What about a hallway, a desk or a nursery?

Go smaller, and hang it where people stand close.

A 12 × 18 or a 12 × 12 reads best within a step or two: beside a desk, along a hallway, next to a bookshelf. A chart carries a lot of fine detail, from the star names to the degree marks round the horizon, and a small print brings that detail within reading distance. In a nursery, hang it out of reach, and never above the cot.

Paper, canvas or framed canvas?

Paper for the finest detail, canvas for a soft surface with no glass, framed canvas for a finished edge.

Fine-art paper prints are on an enhanced matte art paper, smooth and bright. Paper holds the faintest stars and the thinnest lines most crisply. It comes unframed, so plan on a frame, with glass or acrylic in front.

Stretched canvas has a woven texture you can see up close. It softens the finest lines a little and gives the whole sky a painted feel, and with no glass in front there's no reflection from the window opposite.

Framed canvas is the same stretched canvas set in a frame, for a crisp edge around the sky.

Portrait or Panorama?

Portrait for the whole sky over your head; Panorama for the horizon you were looking at.

A Portrait, like the Dome and the Square, holds the entire sky at once, from the horizon all the way round to the zenith, so every constellation that was up is in it. That's the choice for a night. A Panorama is a window 150° wide, low on the sky, which suits a sunset or a moonrise, when the colour and the moment sit near the horizon.

The Portrait goes tall: between two windows, over a narrow console, beside a door. The Panorama goes wide: over a sofa, a bed or a sideboard.

For exampleA wedding that ended at sunset. A Panorama of the minute the Sun went down, As Seen, over the sofa; a 12 × 18 Portrait of midnight the same night, Gold on Midnight, by the bedroom door.

What's the next step?

Measure the furniture, then set your sky.

When you've measured, the studio will draw your sky in any view, so you can see it at its true shape before you choose a size. If you're still deciding which minute to print, The Sky You Were Born Under covers finding it, and About the Stars explains every option, from the views to the inks.