Why Hang Posters
You’d like to hang your posters. It’s a great way to make your space feel more like you. It’s also cheaper than buying new furniture. There are many options for different types of posters – from vintage travel posters to modern pop art. There’s a whole world of art out there and it can be yours at home with the help of your posters. Posters are great because they’re both cheap and fun to look at. They may be copies of the original, but so what, they will still give you the same vibe. When you hang posters you love it will flavour your rooms with your unique pop of personality and style.
How to Hang Posters
Hanging posters is a great way to decorate your walls, but it can be difficult to find the best method. This is a big question! There are so many different ways to go about it.
A trip to your local hardware store will provide an abundance of methods for tackling this project. That can be overwhelming – what to choose. There are standard solutions to hanging posters and there are innovative solutions that most people don’t know about.
Two Innovative Ways to Hang Posters
Make your home look original by turning your walls into a gallery filled with images you love. You get to choose: do you want your posters to be framed or left unframed?
If you’d like them framed then pop down to Spotlight or Kmart. There you will find some nice, well-priced frames. Measure your posters dimensions and take them with you so you know what size frame to buy. Or you could take your poster to a framing shop and have it professionally framed. Framed art is more durable than unframed pieces, so you won’t have to worry about your poster getting wrinkled or torn over time.
1. Hang Your Posters with a Picture Hanging System
A picture hanging system is an elegant, unobtrusive picture hanging track that you mount to your wall. It’s the ideal solution for hanging framed posters.
Some people have never heard of picture hanging systems. They are also called picture hanging rails, art tracks, picture tracking, gallery hanging systems or picture rails.
A picture hanging system has 5 parts to it:
- The picture hanging rail, also called the ‘art track’, the ‘tracking’, the ‘picture rail’ or the ‘hanging rail’
- The click & connects– little plastic studs you install on your wall that the rail clicks on to.
- The end caps – these attach to the end of the rail and give your install a finished look if you’re hanging rail doesn’t go right to the wall.
- The hanging wires aka ‘cables’ or ‘hangers’. They come in different thicknesses, 1 mm and 2 mm. You can get Perlon hangers which are almost invisible (they look like fishing line) or stainless-steel hanging wires which give you an industrial look. The stainless-steel cables have a higher weight bearing capacity. What you choose will depend on the weight of the object you’re planning to hang and the kind of look you’re going for.
- The hooks. You slide the hooks on to the hanging wire. They can move up and down the cable easily, thereby allowing you to hang your poster at the perfect height.
The great thing about a picture hanging system is its flexibility. You may have many posters that you’d like to hang.
If you use any of the standard methods we describe below, you’ll ruin your walls because you’ll be putting posters up, taking them down, and rearranging them until you find a layout that totally pleases you.
Also, as your tastes change and you want to replace the posters you once hung with others, you’ll damage your walls when you pull them off to hang up new ones.
Not so with the picture hanging system. Because you can move the hanging wires to the left and right and the hooks on the hanging wires up and down you can position your posters where ever you like on your wall. This makes it easy to find the perfect spot for your posters.
2. Hang Your Posters with the Info Rail
Perhaps you don’t want to go to the expense and bother of framing your posters, or perhaps you just prefer the unframed look.
Sticking tape or blu tack onto the back of the posters ruins them. Did you know there is a solution for hanging unframed posters that requires sticking nothing on the back of them and lets you display them within seconds?
Hang up your posters in a matter of seconds using this exciting new invention called the Info Rail!
It’s the perfect system for suspending posters, with a gripping power that’s strong enough to hold an A2 sheet or 2mm thick cardstock. The amazing thing about it: it will do zero damage to your posters. How is this possible I hear you ask?
Hidden inside this track is a nifty triple rubber gripping mechanism. All you have to do is slide your poster into the rail and that’s it. The info rail will firmly suspend all your posters even if you leave your front and back door open. That breeze won’t even blow them down!
We’ve sold the info rail not only to homeowners but also to schools and colleges.
Another great part of Info Rail is how easy it is to install. The Click & Connect technology – little plastic clips you mount your wall – makes attaching the rail to your wall a cinch.
If you’d like to hang up new posters it will take you seconds. The Info Rail system is perfect for rotating posters regularly.
The Standard Ways to Hang Posters
Command Strips
Although the manufacturers claim that that command strips won’t damage your walls – BEWARE! If you prepare and clean your walls perfectly and they are plain brick or textured walls you might get lucky. However, if your walls are painted and the primer paint and additional coats of paint weren’t applied perfectly, command strips tend to remove the paint. This could cost you a lot of money and time, especially if you’re in a rental property.
Also, when you take your poster down, even if the command strip leaves the wall clean it often damages the poster.
Velcro
This is a second ‘peel and stick’ option purported not to damage walls. These Velcro tabs are a little heavier than command strips so they’ll take larger or heavier posters. But just like the command strips, if your walls weren’t perfectly prepared before painting and the layers of paint weren’t perfectly applied, removing the posters will also remove the paint.
Blu Tack
Yes, here too the manufacturers claim this won’t damage your walls. Not so! Don’t be fooled by the manufacturers’ claims; it is highly unlikely that you will avoid wall damage in the long run. I’ve seen those little bits of moist putty dry out over time and leave blue stains on once pristine white walls.
Magic Tape
Magic Tape will only hold very light, small posters. When it comes to removing the poster there is a high likelihood that you will remove the paint as well. Plus you’ll be stuck with tape on the back of your posters. How are you going to store them?
Some people use magic tape to stick posters onto lacquered timber surfaces. This will damage the varnish when you remove the poster.
Double Sided Tape
Double sided tape is safe on refrigerators, ceramic tiles, glass or vinyl wallpaper but it definitely isn’t safe on painted walls.
Tacks
The problem with tacks are the holes they make in your poster and the holes they leave in your walls.
Hang Posters and Rotate Them – Change Is the Spice of Life
A well lived life is a life that allows you to express your creativity. Being creative means exploring, experimenting and being open to change.
If that is what you want in life then finding systems that allow you to change your environment as you see fit is a key factor for fulfillment and happiness.
A creative person wants to change around their posters regularly as their taste and priorities change. A picture hanging system and the Info Rail will let you do this. They enable you to transform your space without ruining your walls and wrecking your posters. You can quickly take your posters down and store them in a cardboard tube to protect them. Who knows, one day they may be considered vintage and you can pass them on to your grandchildren sell them for mega dollars.
Something else that could be fun is to mix and match your posters with paintings and photos. You could install both the Click Rail and the Info Rail on your wall. Why not create a gallery wall that makes your heart sing!
Again and again!
