Game room

Every other room tells you where the art goes. A sofa, a bed, a fireplace, a dining table — there is a thing in the room and the picture answers to it. A games room has no such anchor, because the furniture sits in the middle of the floor and people face each other or a screen. So the first decision here is not which print but which wall, and the two candidates behave completely differently.

The wall you face while playing is seen for hours at a stretch, slightly out of focus, over someone's shoulder. It wants one calm thing: a mid-century sun, a moon phase chart, a desert abstract, a single geometric shape. The wall behind you is the one people see on the way in, and it can carry the loudest piece on the page — the pink world map, the northern lights, the blush ocean pair.

The eleven prints here are mostly warm abstracts and celestial subjects: mid-century desert and sun prints, a terracotta sun-and-desert set of three, moon phases, a boho line-drawn figure, a pastel pink abstract, a minimal pink geometric, a coastal pair, the blush ocean pair, the pink world map and a northern lights painting. All print-and-ship on heavy matte paper, unframed, in seven sizes from 5x7 in (12.7 x 17.8 cm) to 16x20 in (40.6 x 50.8 cm) — singles about CA$14–47, pairs about CA$26–84 and the set of three about CA$38–124.

How high should art hang in a games room?

Lower than the usual rule says, because everyone is sitting down and sitting low. The standard puts the centre of a picture at about 145 cm (57 in), which is eye level for someone standing up. In a room where people are on a sofa, a bean bag or a stool, drop it to roughly 130 cm (51 in) so it is not floating above the action, and lower again if the room is a basement with a low ceiling.

Single prints or a set?

Singles and pairs, mostly. A games room wall is already broken up by a television, a dartboard, shelving, a cue rack or a window well, so the long clear run a set of three needs rarely exists. Two prints stacked vertically fit the leftover column beside a screen better than three in a row fit a wall with a bracket in the middle of it. The one set of three on this page is worth it only if you have a genuinely clear metre and a half (5 ft).

Does a games room need bold colour?

It can take it, which is not the same as needing it. This is the one room in a house where nobody is trying to wind down, so a hot pink map or a pink geometric carries no risk here the way it would above a bed. But the screen is already the brightest thing in the room, and if the wall facing it is loud as well, neither one wins. My usual split is warm and quiet opposite the seating, bold on the wall you walk in through.

Nearby: mid-century modern prints for more of this palette, dorm room art for the same job in a rented room, and aura posters if you want colour with no subject in it at all.