How to hang a poster without damaging the wall

Our fine art paper weighs 200 grams per square metre. An A2 is a quarter of a square metre: 50 grams, under two ounces. An A0, a full square metre: 200 grams, seven ounces. A bare print asks nothing of the wall; it is the frame, the glazing, the stretcher bar that weigh, and the fixing is chosen for them.

The wooden hangers are the lightest finish: two bars that grip the sheet with magnets, and a cord between them. One hook is enough, and the cord forgives a hook that is slightly off centre. The classic frame arrives ready to hang, the hanger fixed on the back. Its glazing is acrylic, lighter than glass and unbreakable, which matters above a child’s bed.

The framed canvas is the heaviest and the deepest of the four, two inches off the wall, and it arrives with no hardware: that is how the workshop delivers it, and it is better known before it is on the table. Two D-rings screwed into the stretcher bar, a third of the way down from the top, and a wire between them; or a sawtooth hanger in the centre for the small sizes. A wire on two hooks rather than one, and the frame stops tilting every time someone walks past.

Removable adhesive strips have become serious. The best-known maker rates its large strips at 16 pounds per set of four pairs. That is enough for a mid-sized classic frame, on three conditions the pack states and few people read: a smooth, painted wall, clean, and the waiting time before you hang anything on them. On textured plaster, wallpaper, bare brick or fresh paint they do not hold, and sometimes they take the paint with them when they leave.

Two details that make the difference. Press each strip for a long moment, not with a fingertip. And never put a strip on the paper itself, always on the back of the frame or on the wooden bar.

The picture rail is what galleries and museums use, and it is very much our kind of thing: a rail fixed once along the top of the wall, cables that hook onto it, hooks that slide. The holes are made once, for ten years of hanging that will make none. It is what you choose when you know you will change the piece, or your mind.

The ledge, finally: a narrow shelf with a lip, and the pieces leaning against the wall, overlapping a little. An A4 and an A3 live very well there, framed or in hangers, and you move them with one hand.

A frame that will stay ten years in the same place deserves a fixing that is not up for debate. The fine-pin picture hook, the one you tap into plaster or drywall with a hammer, leaves two one-millimetre holes and holds a mid-sized classic frame without effort. When you leave, a dab of filler, a wipe of the finger, and the wall has seen nothing.

The wall decides the rest. Drywall takes the fine hook for anything light, and asks for a toggle or expanding anchor for a large framed canvas, which is heavy and stands two inches out. An old wall of solid plaster takes the thin nail and the hook. Brick and concrete take nothing without a drill and a plug; that is the case in many recent buildings, and it is where the rail or the strips earn their keep. A wooden wall, a simple screw.

The height, while we are at it: the centre of the piece at about 57 inches, at eye level. It is the convention galleries follow, and almost everyone hangs higher.

The first is everywhere: tape or mounting putty straight onto the print. A 200 gsm art paper has a surface you do not get back; tape tears it, putty stains it, and the four corners end up buckled. A bare print goes between two hangers, into a frame, or onto a ledge. Never taped.

The second: a frame hung from a single point when it has a wire. It tilts, you straighten it, it tilts again. Two hooks set to the width of the frame, and it does not move.

The third is not a fixing, it is a place. The workshop rates the colours to last out of direct sunlight; a wall that takes the afternoon sun will have its way in a few years. Not above a radiator either, nor in a windowless bathroom for a print on paper. The rest of the house is its own.