2 min readNick Lowry knows your shelves have a problem. In truth, most people’s do.
Whether it’s a mix of slapdash objects, a lack of visual weight, or an overhaul of symmetry, the design content creator has come up with a solution for taking the scene from clustered and cluttered to concise and charismatic, using what he calls the “triangle method.”
For those of us who failed geometry in high school, fear not: the triangle method is really just “a catchy way to make visual hierarchy memorable and actionable,” Lowry says. “A shelf that looks ‘right’ usually has some invisible geometry holding it together, and a triangle is one of the more intuitive ways to think about it.”
Below, he walks us through how to create an eye-pleasing vignette on your shelves, how to vary your composition, and which elements do (and don't) work for styling.
Finding The Right Angles
A master class in the beauty of asymmetry, the styling method provides robust variety for our visual appetites, creating vignettes that draw attention and focus to statement pieces without diluting their surroundings. Intentional or not, the method is a recurring theme amongst designers and décor enthusiasts alike.
“When looking at my own shelves and styling by others that I loved, I kept noticing that certain arrangements felt immediately right and others felt off, even when the individual objects were the same," Lowry explains. "When I started breaking down why, general triangles—formed by objects or even in the negative space between them—kept showing up as the underlying structure in the ones that worked.”
Lowry’s Rule Book
That said, there’s more to Lowry's method than just stacking your tchotchkes into pyramids. The design hack requires a reasonable amount of thought and planning to be successful, and Lowry has developed a few rules that he follows to build the perfect arrangements for his spaces.
First, never copy the same composition vertically. Instead, split your shelves down the middle and zigzag your triangle compositions—this helps the decor remain varied and looks less repetitive.
Second, lean into what Lowry describes as “support shelves.” These arrangements span an entire shelf and give your designs more structure. Lowry also recommends starting with your tallest object first, framing it with shapes, sizes, and colors to complement rather than compete with your compositions, and styling in odd numbers as often as possible, since it is nearly impossible to create accidental symmetry that way
Finally, give yourself—and your shelves—time to settle in and breathe. Nothing is finite, and your space is constantly evolving with you. "The most important step is to take a step back and edit; removing one or two things almost always makes the whole shelf look better," Lowry adds. "The goal is for each piece to have room to breathe—you can always rotate what you want to display as a no-buy way to change the feel of your space."
