What Art Prints Make an Apartment Look Cool?
This article is part of our Guide to Buying Fine Art Prints.
Start With These 4 Styles
You have seen this apartment before.
Maybe in a film. Maybe in a magazine. Maybe at a friend’s place. The furniture is not necessarily expensive. The room is not overdecorated. Nothing looks forced.
But somehow the apartment looks cool.
Very often, the trick is not the sofa, the coffee table, or the lamp. It is the art on the wall.
The right print can make an apartment feel more cinematic, more adult, more designed, or more lived-in almost immediately. The wrong print can make the same room feel generic, unfinished, or temporary.
The good news is that you do not need to know a lot about art to get this right.
You need a few reliable visual languages.
In brief: If you want your apartment to look cooler without becoming an art expert, start with four reliable print styles: vintage travel and film posters, vintage advertising and café posters, Bauhaus and modernist exhibition prints, and black-and-white photography, especially architectural photography. Each gives a room a different kind of confidence.
Quick Answer: The 4 Easiest Art Print Styles for a Cooler Apartment
| Style | What it does for the room | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Vintage travel and film posters | Makes the apartment feel cinematic, cultured, and less generic. | Living rooms, hallways, reading corners, above a desk, near books or records. |
| Vintage advertising and café posters | Adds warmth, personality, and a slightly European lived-in feeling. | Kitchens, dining corners, bar carts, breakfast nooks, small apartments. |
| Bauhaus and modernist exhibition prints | Makes the room feel designed, intentional, and visually sharper. | Home offices, modern condos, minimalist rooms, desks, bookshelves. |
| Black-and-white photography | Makes the apartment feel cleaner, more adult, more gallery-like, and less decorated. | Living rooms, bedrooms, entryways, offices, loft-style spaces, modern apartments. |
The shortcut is simple:
- Choose a vintage travel or film poster if you want the room to feel cinematic.
- Choose a vintage advertising or café poster if you want warmth and personality.
- Choose a Bauhaus or modernist print if you want the room to feel designed.
- Choose black-and-white photography if you want the apartment to feel calm, architectural, and grown-up.
The Cool Apartment Rule: Choose a Visual Language
Most people get stuck because they try to choose “a nice print.”
That is too vague.
A cooler way to think about it is to choose a visual language. Do you want the room to feel cinematic? Graphic? European? Modernist? Architectural? Warm? Severe? Playful? Quiet?
Once you choose the language, the art becomes much easier.
Cool apartments usually do not have random wall art. They have one or two clear ideas on the wall. A vintage cinema poster. A Bauhaus exhibition print. A café poster. A black-and-white photograph of architecture or light falling across a building.
The art gives the apartment a point of view.
That is what makes it feel cool.
1. Vintage Travel and Film Posters
Pictured - Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman Movie Poster
Vintage travel and film posters are probably the easiest way to make an apartment feel cooler quickly.
They work because they already contain a story.
A travel poster suggests trains, ships, cities, mountains, beaches, hotels, stations, terminals, and the idea of leaving. A film poster suggests taste, mood, memory, and a private cultural world. Put either one on the wall and the apartment immediately feels less anonymous.
This is why these prints show up so often in good-looking apartments, cafés, studios, and film interiors. They do not just decorate the wall. They imply a life outside the wall.
Look for:
- railway posters
- ocean liner posters
- airline and resort posters
- European city posters
- classic film posters
- arthouse cinema posters
- Art Deco transport posters
A. M. Cassandre is one of the great names here. His 1935 Normandie poster is a classic example of how a transport poster can feel monumental, modern, and elegant at the same time.
Film posters can do something similar. A strong vintage film poster does not have to scream “movie fan.” It can function as graphic art, especially when the design is bold, minimal, or visually iconic. A poster for a film like Metropolis, for example, works because it carries both cinema history and Art Deco design power.
Pictured - Bad Kreuznach | Ludwig Hohlwein (Vintage Travel Poster)
Best rooms for this style:
- living room
- hallway
- above a writing desk
- near a record player
- beside bookshelves
- small apartments that need one strong visual anchor
Apartment effect: cinematic, worldly, cultured, slightly nostalgic.
Where to start: Browse our Vintage Maps and Posters collection, including travel, film, Art Deco, and period graphic design prints.
You can also start with a strong film-poster statement piece such as our Metropolis movie poster fine art print.
2. Vintage Advertising and Café Posters
Pictured - Sancta | Leonetto Cappiello
If travel and film posters make an apartment feel cinematic, vintage advertising posters make it feel lived-in.
This is the café, bar cart, kitchen, bistro, aperitif, theatre, and old-European-signage lane.
It is one of the fastest ways to give a room personality without making it feel overdesigned.
Vintage advertising posters work because they were designed to be understood quickly from across a street. Strong silhouette. Strong color. Strong figure. Strong product. The best ones still have that power on a wall.
Leonetto Cappiello is the key artist to know here. He began his poster career around 1900 and became one of the defining figures of early modern advertising poster design. His posters often use bold figures, dark backgrounds, lively color, and a single memorable image that stays in the eye.
These prints are especially good if your apartment needs warmth rather than seriousness.
Look for:
- Leonetto Cappiello posters
- Jules Chéret-style Belle Époque posters
- French and Italian food or drink posters
- café and aperitif posters
- cabaret, theatre, and music posters
- cycling, racing, chocolate, perfume, and liquor posters
This style is less severe than Bauhaus and less quiet than photography. It is social. It makes a kitchen feel like people gather there. It makes a dining corner feel less like a table and more like a place.
Best rooms for this style:
- kitchen
- dining nook
- bar cart area
- breakfast corner
- small living room
- hallway that needs color
Apartment effect: warm, witty, European, social, slightly cinematic.
Where to start: Try a strong vintage advertising print such as Leonetto Cappiello’s Sancta Liquor or Cappiello’s Florio Cinzano.
3. Bauhaus and Modernist Exhibition Prints
Pictured - Bauhaus Ausstellung Vintage Poster
Bauhaus and modernist prints are the easiest way to make an apartment look designed.
They work because they look intentional even in a simple room.
A Bauhaus print does not need ornate furniture around it. It can sit above a desk, beside a low sofa, over a record shelf, or in a white hallway and make the whole space feel more considered.
The visual language is direct: geometry, type, circles, grids, diagonals, primary colors, strong negative space, and clean composition. These prints work well because they carry the feeling of design rather than decoration.
Look for:
- Bauhaus exhibition posters
- modernist typography
- geometric abstraction
- Josef Albers-inspired color studies
- Herbert Bayer-style graphic design
- Joost Schmidt and Bauhaus exhibition language
- De Stijl, Constructivist, Suprematist, and related avant-garde graphics
This style is especially good for people who do not want their apartment to look “decorated” in a soft or cozy way. It makes a room feel edited. It gives the wall structure.
A Bauhaus print makes the room look like someone made decisions.
Best rooms for this style:
- home office
- desk wall
- modern living room
- studio apartment
- minimalist bedroom
- bookcase or record-player wall
Apartment effect: designed, intelligent, graphic, clean, modern.
Where to start: Browse our Bauhaus and Avant-Garde Modernism collection.
4. Black-and-White Photography, Especially Architecture
Pictured - Scherzo di Follia | Pierre Louis-Pierson (B&W Photography)
Black-and-white photography is the quietest category on this list, but it may be the most reliable.
It works because it removes decoration from the image. Without color, the eye pays attention to light, shadow, shape, surface, structure, and composition. That makes black-and-white photography feel calm, adult, and gallery-like almost immediately.
Architectural photography is especially useful for apartments because it gives the room structure without adding visual noise.
A photograph of a building, bridge, staircase, street, façade, window, cathedral, corridor, or city shadow can make a wall feel more intentional without demanding too much attention. It is cool because it does not try too hard.
Look for:
- black-and-white architectural photography
- city streets and façades
- bridges, towers, staircases, and windows
- shadows across buildings
- documentary-style urban photographs
- minimal black-and-white landscapes
- photographs where light and structure matter more than color
This category has a long history. Berenice Abbott’s Changing New York, for example, documented the transformation of New York in the 1930s, when older buildings were giving way to skyscrapers and a more vertical modern city. The appeal of that kind of photograph is still obvious: it gives a room architecture, mood, and time.
You do not need a famous photograph for this to work. A strong contemporary architectural photograph can do the same job if it has clean structure, good light, and enough quiet.
Best rooms for this style:
- living room
- bedroom
- entryway
- office
- loft-style apartment
- modern condo
- rooms with black, white, chrome, walnut, concrete, leather, or linen
Apartment effect: calm, adult, architectural, gallery-like, restrained.
Where to start: Browse our Photography collection for fine art photography prints, including architectural, documentary, and contemporary photographic works.
For architectural warmth rather than stark black-and-white minimalism, explore Pablo Meilán Campagnale’s Italy collection. For a more contemporary architectural language, browse Andrew Shoukry’s Beige Rebellion collection.
How to Choose the Right Style for Your Apartment
Do not start by asking, “What art do I like?”
That question can be too broad.
Start with the effect you want.
| If you want the apartment to feel... | Choose... |
|---|---|
| Cinematic | Vintage travel or film posters |
| Warm and social | Vintage advertising or café posters |
| Designed and modern | Bauhaus or modernist exhibition prints |
| Calm and grown-up | Black-and-white photography |
| Architectural | Black-and-white architectural photography or modern photography prints |
| More personal | A film poster, music poster, travel poster, or photograph tied to something you genuinely love |
| More refined | One large print rather than several small unrelated prints |
The easiest mistake is buying something too generic.
A beige abstract print may fill the wall, but it may not give the apartment a point of view. A strong travel poster, Bauhaus print, vintage café poster, or black-and-white photograph usually does more work because it brings a recognizable visual world with it.
How Many Prints Do You Need?
Pictured - Bauhaus Statement Trio Black and Orange
Usually fewer than you think.
For a small apartment, one strong print can be better than five weak ones. The goal is not to cover every blank wall. The goal is to give the room a center of gravity.
Start with one of these approaches:
- One large statement print above a sofa, bed, desk, or console.
- A pair of related posters, photographs, or modernist prints.
- A tight trio if you want a more collected wall, but keep the frames and spacing consistent.
If you are not sure, start with one large print.
Cool apartments often look effortless because they are not overfilled. One strong image with the right frame can do more than a wall of unrelated small prints.
For more on size, read Fine Art Print Size Guide: How Big Should Your Print Be?.
How to Frame These Prints
The frame should match the visual language.
- Vintage travel and film posters usually look good in black, natural wood, walnut, or simple white frames.
- Vintage advertising posters can handle warmer frames: natural wood, walnut, gold, or black.
- Bauhaus and modernist prints usually look best in simple black, white, or natural wood frames.
- Black-and-white photography often looks best in black, white, walnut, or thin natural wood frames. Wide mats can make photography feel more gallery-like.
Avoid frames that fight the image. If the print is already bold, keep the frame restrained. If the print is quieter, a slightly warmer or darker frame can give it more presence.
Glazing also matters. Posters, photography, and graphic prints can all lose impact if the surface reflects too much light. Low-reflection glazing can make a framed print feel cleaner and more finished in a real apartment.
For a fuller breakdown, read How to Frame Art Prints in 4 Easy Steps and Buy Art Prints Like a Pro: 5 Terms You Should Know.
What to Avoid
If you want your apartment to look cool, avoid art that feels too anonymous.
That does not mean every print needs to be famous. It means the print should have some visual identity.
Be careful with:
- generic beige abstracts that only match the sofa
- motivational typography
- mass-market prints with no artist, title, period, or context
- tiny prints on large walls
- too many unrelated prints in different frames
- art that looks like it was chosen by a staging company
The goal is not to impress people with how much you know.
The goal is to make the apartment feel like someone with a point of view lives there.
Where 9 Art Prints Fits
At 9 Art Prints, we focus on fine art reproductions, period graphic works, modernist prints, and photography that feel strong enough to live on the wall, not just fill space.
That includes vintage posters, Bauhaus and modernist prints, film posters, vintage advertising works, and photography prints that give a room identity quickly.
Our prints are produced using archival giclée printing on premium fine art paper, with framed and unframed options. Many of our core prints are produced on Hahnemühle German Etching 310 gsm, and our framed options use solid wood frames, not MDF.
That matters because the “cool apartment” look depends on the finished object. A good image still needs the right size, paper, frame, and presentation.
Where to Start
If you want the fastest route, start here:
- Browse Vintage Maps and Posters for travel, film, Art Deco, and period graphic prints.
- Browse Bauhaus and Avant-Garde Modernism for modernist, geometric, and exhibition-style prints.
- Browse Photography for photographic prints that make a room feel calmer, sharper, and more gallery-like.
- Browse Statement Art Sets if you want a pre-curated pair, trio, or larger wall arrangement.
- Start with Metropolis if you want a dramatic film-poster statement.
- Start with Cappiello’s Florio Cinzano if you want a bold café/poster look.
You do not need to know everything about art to choose well.
Choose the visual language first.
The apartment will start to make sense around it.
The Bottom Line
If you want your apartment to look cool, do not start with random wall art.
Start with a proven visual language.
Vintage travel and film posters make the room feel cinematic. Vintage advertising posters make it feel warm and lived-in. Bauhaus and modernist prints make it feel designed. Black-and-white photography makes it feel calm, adult, and gallery-like.
One strong print in the right style can do more for an apartment than a room full of forgettable décor.
Further Reading
- The Ultimate Guide to Fine Art Prints
- What Kind of Wall Art Makes a Home Look More Expensive?
- How Do I Choose Art Prints for My Home if I Don’t Know Where to Start?
- Fine Art Print Size Guide: How Big Should Your Print Be?
- How to Frame Art Prints in 4 Easy Steps
- Buy Art Prints Like a Pro: 5 Terms You Should Know
References
- MoMA — A. M. Cassandre, Normandie, 1935
- MoMA — Heinz Schulz-Neudamm, Poster for Metropolis, 1926
- MoMA — E. McKnight Kauffer, Poster Design for Metropolis, 1926
- Leonetto Cappiello — Official Biography
- Victoria and Albert Museum — A Short History of the Poster
- MoMA — Bauhaus: 1919–1928
- MoMA — Herbert Bayer, Poster Design for Bauhaus Exhibition, Weimar, 1923
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Department of Photographs
- MoMA — Berenice Abbott
- New York State Museum — Berenice Abbott: Changing New York
