Buying a wall clock online is mostly a sizing problem. The design is easy to judge from a photograph; the size is not, and it is the thing people get wrong. A clock that looked generous on screen arrives and reads as a saucer on a large wall. This guide gives you a way to decide before you order.
Measure the wall, not the clock
Work out the width of the empty wall space the clock will sit in — between the edges of furniture, shelving or door frames, not the full wall. A clock should occupy roughly a half to two thirds of that space. Anything smaller stops being a feature and starts looking like an afterthought.
The five sizes, and where each one belongs
- 20 x 20 cm (8 in) — small spaces read at close range: a desk wall, a hallway, a kitchen shelf, a child's room.
- 25 x 25 cm (10 in) — the safe choice for a kitchen or a home office wall of about 60 to 80 cm of clear space.
- 30 x 30 cm (12 in) — the most versatile size. Reads clearly across an average living room and holds a wall of roughly a metre.
- 35 x 35 cm (14 in) — for a wall with nothing else on it, or a room where you sit more than four metres away.
- 40 x 40 cm (16 in) — a deliberate centrepiece above a sofa, a mantel or a stairwell. At this size the clock is the artwork, so give it clear space on both sides.
Viewing distance is the other half of it
A rough rule: for every metre you sit away from the clock, you want about 7 cm of diameter to read the time at a glance. Four metres across a living room puts you at 28 cm, which rounds to the 30 cm size. If the clock is decorative first and functional second, you can ignore this and size to the wall instead.
Hanging height
Eye level is the default — around 150 to 160 cm from the floor to the centre of the clock. Above a sofa or a console table, ignore eye level and leave 20 to 30 cm between the top of the furniture and the bottom of the clock, so the two read as one arrangement.
A note on the personalised version
Every clock in this store carries a name printed into the artwork rather than added on top, so the name scales with the piece. Names longer than about twelve characters are set smaller to fit, which is worth knowing if you are choosing the 20 cm size for a long name — the 25 or 30 cm size gives the lettering more room. You can see how the process works on our personalisation page.
The clocks are printed acrylic with a silent quartz movement, so there is no ticking in a quiet room, and they hang on a single nail or adhesive hook. Browse the full range of personalised wall clocks once you know your size.
Room by room
Living room. The hardest room to size, because the viewing distance is long and the wall is usually shared with other things. Above a sofa, 30 or 35 cm reads best. On a bare feature wall with nothing competing, 40 cm earns its place. Below 30 cm above a three-seater sofa almost always looks undersized in the photograph you take afterwards.
Kitchen. You read a kitchen clock in passing, often from the far side of the room, and usually while doing something else. 25 or 30 cm is the range. Kitchens also have the least free wall, so measure the gap between the cupboards before anything else.
Home office. You sit close, so legibility is not the problem — presence is. 25 cm on the wall beside a monitor, 30 cm if it is the only thing on that wall. This is the room where a personalised piece does the most work, because it is the wall you look at all day and the one that appears behind you on video calls.
Bedroom. Above a chest of drawers or between two windows, 25 to 30 cm. A bedroom clock is read from a few metres at most, usually first thing in the morning, so contrast matters more than size.
Hallway and entry. Narrow walls, short viewing distance, and people move past rather than sit. 20 or 25 cm. A large clock in a hallway crowds the space every time somebody walks through it.
Child's room. 20 or 25 cm at a height the child can actually see — around 120 cm from the floor rather than adult eye level. A name printed into the artwork is the whole point in this room, so give the name room to be read.
Four sizing mistakes, and how to avoid them
Buying to the wall, not to the gap. A four-metre wall with a bookcase at one end and a door at the other does not have four metres of hanging space. Measure the empty part.
Judging size from a product photo. Product photographs are shot to show the artwork, not the scale. Cut the size you are considering out of newspaper, tape it to the wall, and live with it for a day. It takes two minutes and it settles the question better than any guide can.
Forgetting the frame of reference. A 30 cm clock next to a large mirror reads small. The same clock alone on a wall reads generous. Size against what is already up, not against an empty room in your head.
Sizing a long name into a small clock. The name is set into the artwork, so it scales with the piece. Wall clocks read best at twelve characters or fewer; the field accepts up to 25, but a long name on a 20 cm face has to be set small. If the name is long, size up rather than squint.
Hanging it as part of a group
If the clock joins a gallery wall, stop sizing it as a clock and start sizing it as one frame among several. It should be the largest piece or clearly the second largest — a clock the same size as everything around it disappears into the arrangement and stops telling the time, which defeats the point of hanging a clock rather than a print.
Leave 5 to 8 cm between pieces. Any tighter and the group reads as clutter; any wider and it stops reading as a group at all.
If you are still unsure
Choose 30 cm. It is the most versatile of the five sizes, it suits the majority of rooms, and it is the one people regret least. The regret in the other direction — buying 20 cm for a living room — is far more common.
From the range
Three from the range, once you know your size: