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Design Tips – How to Showcase Collections

Today’s design tips: How to Showcase Collections. Showcasing collections can be a challenge. Tina is a real collector and her home demonstrates that. She has many collections around her home and all of them are interesting because she knows how to display them.

Since 1952, these KLM houses have been given out by the airlines to their international business travelers. Tina’s collection started when her Dutch friend Yvonne gave her 6 houses.

Here are a few tips about collections:

Using The Whole Collection in One Place

This has far more graphic impact than putting a few pieces around the whole house. Tina has a collection of architectural tools that she has displayed in her living room. If she were to divide up the pieces and spread them around the house the collection would be lost. It is by placing them all together that it works so well. The like objects read off one another and make it far more interesting and a real conversation piece.

Create A Boundary Around The Collection

This could mean putting the items in a bookcase, or on a shelf, in a glass box or in a bowl. It could even mean laying out the objects on a side table but they must then have some negative space around it to define it as a collection.   You need negative space around collections to prevent looking cluttered.

Seashells are placed in an Alvar Aalto vase to contain them in an interesting way. 

These architectural icons are placed on a white shelf. This contains the clutter and focuses the eye on the whole collection.

Balance

If you have a collection of items that need to stand up, make sure you create a balance with these items. You want the eye to flow around the collection as one and not start and stop as you “see” the collection. Tina has a collection of Statues of Liberty. See how she groups them together to create a balance?

Collections Should Tell a Story

And, of course, your collections should tell your story. They should be from your travels or from family and/or friends but they should tell a bit about who you are. Looking around Tina and Graham’s house you can see exactly what interests them. They really tell their story.

These vintage watch faces came from a dockside flea market in London.

These keys came from a used building supply yard in France and the broken tile came from the Expo ’92 building site in Seville, Spain.

These shoe lasts are from Kensington Market in Toronto

Do you have a favourite collection you’d like to share with us? Send us a picture!