Choosing abstract wallpaper
Where it works
Abstracts belong where a floral would look wrong: a modern living room, a study, a hallway with a concrete or pale wood floor. Lavender Sweep, petal forms in periwinkle and gold, and Washed Squares are soft enough for a bedroom. Painted Bridges, flame-stitch peaks in pink, vermillion and mustard, and Tiger Strokes are loud enough that one wall is plenty, behind a sofa or a bed. The ink wave designs, Black Wave, Rolling Waves and Ink Surf, are the ones for a bathroom or a cloakroom, pattern without colour.
Picking between the designs
The collection sorts by the tool that made the mark. Brushed: Painted Bridges, Lavender Sweep, Rolling Surf in burnt orange and aubergine, Tiger Strokes. Inked: the wave family, hatched swells row on row. Scattered: Jewel Terrazzo, chips of fuchsia and emerald on midnight navy, and Leopard Confetti. Cut: Portrait Collage and Bouquet Silhouette, black and white cut-paper figures and vases tiled with almost no ground showing, the most graphic things we print. Retro Figures is the odd one, screen-printed people in orange on jade green, halfway between an abstract and a story. If you are unsure, pick by the number of colours: the waves have one, Lavender Sweep has three, Jewel Terrazzo has five.
Related
The straight-edged designs are in geometric wallpaper, the wetter ones in watercolor wallpaper, and the 1950s shapes in mid-century modern wallpaper. Ten favourites are in Best abstract wallpaper.