Christmas photo collages
A Christmas collage is usually a card. That means it will be printed at postcard size and read from across a room, and almost everything about it follows from those two facts.
The rest of this site assumes a screen. A Christmas collage is the exception: it goes to a printer, into an envelope, and onto somebody else's shelf, where it is looked at from two metres away rather than held at arm's length. A design that works on a phone can fail completely at that distance, and it fails in a specific way worth knowing about.
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1. Read from across a room
A card on a mantelpiece is seen at roughly ten times the distance of a phone. What survives that is size, not detail.
Three or four photos, no more. Six is already a mosaic at postcard size; nine is a pattern. This is the strongest constraint on the page and the one most people ignore.
One photo should dominate. A hero cell with two or three smaller ones reads instantly from across a room, where four equal cells read as a grid of nothing in particular.
Faces large, and few of them. A group of eight at postcard size is eight thumbprints. Better one photo of everybody plus two of individuals than four of the group.
2. The red and green is already there
The instinct is to add Christmas colour: a red background, a green border, gold everywhere. It almost always makes the card worse, and for a reason that is easy to check.
Christmas photos are already saturated. A tree, a jumper, wrapping paper, a table: the palette is in the pictures. Putting more of it behind them leaves nowhere for the eye to rest, and the photos stop being the subject.
Cream, white or a deep neutral. Let the photos carry the colour. If you want a seasonal cue, one narrow border does more than a full background, and it costs none of the picture.
The exception is a photo set that is genuinely drab, which happens with an outdoor Christmas in grey weather. Then a warm ground earns its place.
3. Printing it
| Card | Pixels | Photos |
|---|---|---|
| A6 postcard | 1748 x 1240 | 2 to 3 |
| A5 folded | 2480 x 1748 | 3 to 4 |
| 5 x 7 inch | 1500 x 2100 | 3 to 4 |
Leave a margin. Card printers trim, and a face cut in half at the edge is the one mistake nobody can unsee. Keep everything important a good centimetre inside.
Order early enough that you can look at a proof. Screens are backlit and paper is not: a card that looked rich on a phone usually prints a little darker and a little flatter, and choosing brighter photos is the fix.
4. Make one
Pick a collage above and it opens at a card-friendly shape. Cut a photo before you add one: three that read from across a room beat six that need to be picked up.
The print sizes page has the exact pixel counts, and the Christmas guide has more arrangements including what to do with a family that did not all gather.
Questions about Christmas collages
How many photos should a Christmas card collage have?
Three or four. A card is read from across a room at roughly ten times the distance of a phone, so six photos at postcard size are already a mosaic and nine are a pattern. Making one photo dominant and the others smaller reads instantly, where four equal cells do not.
What background colour suits a Christmas collage?
Cream, white or a deep neutral. The red and green is already in the photos - the tree, the jumpers, the paper - and adding more behind them leaves the eye nowhere to rest. A narrow seasonal border does more than a full coloured background and costs none of the picture.
What size should I make a Christmas card collage?
1748 x 1240 for an A6 postcard, 2480 x 1748 for an A5 folded card, 1500 x 2100 for 5 x 7 inches. Keep anything important a centimetre inside the edge, because card printers trim and a face cut in half at the border cannot be unseen.
Why does my card look darker printed than on screen?
A screen is backlit and paper is not, so a collage always prints a little darker and flatter than it looked. The fix is to choose brighter photos rather than to brighten the file, and to order early enough that a proof can change your mind.
