Left of the main door, at eye level, in metal if the door faces north or west and wood if it faces east or south. That is the majority answer. It is also worth saying plainly that the sources disagree on both the side and the material, so this guide separates what they agree on from what they do not, and ends with the one rule every source states and that actually has consequences.
Which side of the door
Most sources say the left as you stand outside facing the door. A minority say the right. None of them gives a reason strong enough to settle it, and you will find respected Vastu writers on both sides.
Where they do agree: the plate belongs on the wall beside the door rather than on the door leaf itself, it should be fixed firmly rather than left to hang and swing, and it should not sit directly facing a lift.
If your entrance has usable wall on one side only, use that side. A plate people can actually read beats a plate on the theoretically correct side of a door.
Height
Eye level, which sources put at roughly five to six feet from the ground, or the upper half of the door. Chest height is also given and falls in much the same range. The reasoning behind the rule is plain enough: the name should be readable without anyone stooping or stepping back into the road.
Material by direction
This is the rule that matters most if you are choosing a plate rather than repositioning one.
- North and west facing doors: metal. Brass, copper or steel.
- East and south facing doors: wood.
Most sources give it in that form, on the reasoning that metal suits the northern and western halves of the house while wood belongs to the east. A minority invert it and put wood in the north and east. If you want the version with the most agreement behind it, brass on a north or west facing door is the safe choice.
Acrylic and glass are generally discouraged, or allowed only over a solid backing. The objection is to a plate that reads as flimsy or reflective rather than to the material itself.
Colour by direction
Sources differ in the detail but converge on this much:
- North: green, or earthy tones.
- East: brown, beige and the colour of wood.
- South: deep red, maroon and terracotta.
- West: white, grey, silver and metallic.
Antique gold on a dark ground reads as metallic rather than as a colour, which is why it is generally treated as acceptable on any aspect. The rule most worth keeping is the one underneath all of these: high contrast between the lettering and the ground, so the name carries from the gate.
Shape
Rectangular, square, oval and round are all accepted. Unusually, no source singles out a shape to avoid. This is a real difference from clocks, where round is clearly preferred and sharply angular shapes are advised against. If you have read our guide to wall clock direction as per Vastu and expected the same rule to apply here, it does not.
The rule every source agrees on
Never a plate that is cracked, rusted, faded, peeling or dirty. Every source states it, and it is the only point with no dissent anywhere.
It is also the one with real teeth, because it is the rule most likely to be broken by accident. The direction your door faces was decided before you moved in. The condition of the plate is decided every monsoon.
This is where material choice stops being symbolic and starts being practical. Painted MDF swells and lifts once damp gets into the edge. Printed acrylic and vinyl fade in direct sun, and in most of India a south or west facing gate takes several hours of it a day. Plated finishes lift at the edges as soon as water works underneath. Each of those ends up as a plate that fails the one rule everybody agrees on, usually within a year or two.
Our plates are electroformed, which means the metal is grown onto the sculpted form rather than sprayed or plated over it, so it does not chip, flake or peel. They are UV-protected and weather-treated after finishing, which is what lets them hold their colour through direct sun and the monsoon without repainting.
What to put on it
The family name and the house or flat number is the standard. Om or a swastik is fine and traditional, but sources consistently ask for it to stay subtle rather than dominate the plate. Keep the font simple and readable, avoid thin or wavy lettering, and resist crowding in a second line you do not need.
Nothing in Vastu requires English. If the name reads better in Devanagari, Gujarati, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu or Bengali, that is the version to use, and ours are set in any script.
Light it. Every source asks for the plate to be visible after dark, with a soft warm light beside or above it rather than anything that blinks or glares.
What you can actually control
Read enough of these guides and the advice starts to feel like a list of things you cannot change. The direction of your door is fixed. Whether you have wall to the left of it is fixed. In a flat, even the wall may not be yours to drill.
What is genuinely in your hands is narrower and more useful: the material, the contrast of the lettering, the height, the light, and whether the plate still looks cared for in three years. Those four are worth more attention than the side of the door, and they are the ones nobody argues about.
On the drilling problem specifically, our plates come with three mounting choices. Sealed peel-off strips need no holes at all and suit tile or granite, which solves the rented flat. Keyhole slots take two screws and lift on and off. A floating stud mount sets the plate a few millimetres off the wall so it throws a shadow line and no fixing shows.
Choosing one
All of ours are made to order in our own workshop, in antique brass on a blackened ground, in sizes from four by six up to ten by ten inches. You send the spelling exactly as you want it and a design preview comes back by email before anything is made, which matters more than it sounds: a name is not something to discover a typo in after it is on the gate.
For the entrance, see personalised name plates. The Personalised Victorian Name Plate suits painted brick and stone, and the Jaipur Arch with Peacocks is a jharokha made small enough to hang beside a door. If the number matters more than the name, the name and address signs include the Crest Shield and a stone effect house number plate.
For a family name rather than an address, the Family Name Plate sits with the rest of our family heirlooms, and the wider range of personalised plaques covers weddings, births and the pieces that go inside the house rather than on the door.
If you are buying one for someone else, our guide to griha pravesh gift ideas covers what else suits a new home and what to leave out.
Treat the directional rules as a way of making a decision you were going to make anyway, and the condition rule as the one worth actually keeping. A name plate that still reads clearly after five monsoons has satisfied the spirit of all of it.