Bureau

Office art has a job the rest of the house does not give it: it has to look right to people who are not you. This collection leans hard on that. Its largest strand is medical, drawn as floral anatomy in gold and watercolour: hearts, lungs and brains, a floral eye for an eye clinic, uterus and breast anatomy, and pregnancy and midwife prints for an OB-GYN practice or a doula. Alongside those is a run of dental pieces, with teeth and dentist's tools growing flowers. Around them sit calmer prints that work in any office: eucalyptus and blue botanical sets, hydrangeas, mid-century sun and desert abstracts, moon phases, one-line portraits, blush abstracts and a few black-and-white typography posters.

Every print is made to order on heavy matte paper and shipped unframed in seven sizes, 5x7 inches (13 x 18 cm) up to 16x20 inches (41 x 51 cm), so a set can be sized for a consult room or a whole reception wall.

What art suits a medical or dental office?

Art that matches the practice tells a patient where they are before anyone speaks, and floral anatomy does that without feeling clinical. A heart or a molar with flowers growing through it reads as care rather than as a textbook diagram. I would match the subject to the specialty: teeth for a dental surgery, the eye for an optometrist, pregnancy anatomy for a midwife or OB-GYN. Then keep the waiting room gentler, with botanicals or abstracts, and put the anatomy in the consult room, where the conversation is already about the body.

How much art does a reception or waiting-room wall need?

More than you would think. A waiting room is looked at from a chair and from across the room, so small prints get lost. On a long wall, a set of three or four hung in a row with equal gaps reads as one piece from a seat, where a single 5x7 disappears. Anything more than about 2 m (6.5 ft) from the nearest chair wants the 16x20 size. Hang the centre a little lower than the usual 145 cm (57 in), because most of the people looking at it are sitting down.

What makes office art look professional rather than homely?

Restraint and repetition. One colour family carried across every piece does more than any single print, and matching frames do the rest. Keep personal subjects such as name prints and family pieces out of a shared or client-facing room; they belong in a home office. And take care with words. A quote poster in reception is read by everyone who waits there, so choose one you would be happy to have the business stand behind.

The anatomy prints on their own, with more choice for each specialty, are in medical office decor, and the teeth and tools are gathered in dental office art. If the office is a spare room at home, home office wall art is chosen with a video-call background in mind.