How big is A1 on a wall?

How big A1 really looks

It is the large poster size in Europe and the UK, close to 24 × 36 inches, used for posters, plans and large art prints. Its long side, 84 cm (33 in), is about the length of an arm from shoulder to fingertip, and 41 % of the height of a standard interior door. In area it covers 0.5 m², about 8 sheets of A4 paper.

Where an A1 print fits

It suits the wall above a console or a desk, a large wall in a living room or an entrance, and a pair above a sofa or a bed.

• In portrait, an A1 print is 59 cm (23 in) wide, so on its own it suits furniture 79 to 89 cm wide, such as a narrow chest of drawers.
• In landscape, an A1 print is 84 cm (33 in) wide, so on its own it suits furniture 112 to 126 cm wide, such as a desk and a console.
• Above a three-seat sofa 220 cm wide, 2 portrait prints in a row, 6 cm apart, fill the two thirds of the sofa’s width that looks right.

How high to hang it

On a bare wall, hang an A1 print with its centre 145 to 152 cm (57 to 60 in) from the floor, the eye level galleries use. Above a sofa 85 cm high, keep 15 to 25 cm between the sofa and the frame, which puts the centre of a landscape A1 at about 148 cm (58 in). A pair of A1 prints in landscape, 6 cm apart, is the classic way to fill the wall above a three-seat sofa.

Framing an A1 print

An A1 print fits a ready-made A1 frame, or a 70 × 100 cm frame with a mat cut for A1.

A1 compared with the sizes around it

One step down, A2 is 42 × 59.4 cm, and A1 has about twice its area. One step up, A0 is 84.1 × 118.9 cm, with about twice the area of A1. The dashed outlines in the drawing show both at the same scale. The nearest size in the inch sizes is 24 × 36, at 61 × 91.4 cm, about 10 % larger in area. See 24 × 36 on a wall.

The file a sharp A1 print needs

Print shops ask for 300 dpi, which at A1 means 7,016 × 9,933 pixels. From the viewing distance above, 150 dpi (3,508 × 4,967 pixels) already looks clean, which is enough for most photographs and digital art.

Selling A1 prints online?

70 % of people who have never bought art online fear it will look different at home. Roomhero puts every work in your shop on your buyers’ own walls at its real size, in every size and frame you sell, straight from your product page and with no app. Every pixel of your artwork stays untouched. Plans start at €29 a month for up to 250 artworks, set up for you in 2 working days, with five-star support. Try it free with one artwork.