Knolling
The process of arranging different objects so that they are at 90-degree angles from each other, and then often photographing them from above, but could also be used as a method for organizing, packing, and arranging more broadly.
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Origin
Coined in 1987 by Andrew Kromelow, a janitor at Frank Gehry's furniture fabrication shop in Santa Monica. Kromelow arranged stray tools at right angles on flat surfaces each evening, naming the practice after Florence Knoll, whose angular modernist furniture Gehry's studio was then producing for Knoll, Inc. Artist Tom Sachs, who also worked in Gehry's studio, later popularized the method with his 2009 studio manifesto 10 Bullets and the mantra "Always Be Knolling."
Updated February 22, 2026