Choosing a Mat Design and Framing a Series of Colorful Prints (and a build-up mat!)

Our customer brought in a series of 5 linoleum cut prints in various colors. They were test prints for the artist to determine which inks and papers he preferred but our client liked them so much she decided to frame them. She had gone to one of the big discount stores and poked through their ready-made frames but found their picture frames were too chunky, or too skinny or to rickety looking. She definitely wanted to mat the prints but the choices were slim. When she inquired at the custom framing desk she found the input from the customer service representatives fell short of what she was hoping for. Nice as they were, they just didn't have the experience. That's when she came to us at the Village Frame Shop of Pawling.

At first we started to look at framing each piece in a color mat and frame to highlight each colorful print. (We are after all, custom framers!) Great idea, especially since we have many groups of molding available in a variety of colors, this would be cinch to find the right colored mat and frame for each. After looking at a beautiful array of colors she did a complete about face and wanted to look at basics. She felt the color mats and frames were pulling her focus away from the prints themselves. So she wanted to see black or white mats.

Black was good but we thought it too understated.

White alone left it looking a bit flat.

We had an "ah-ha" moment when we combined the white mat with a black undermat with a 1/4" reveal. She liked the way it brought uniformity to the collection and allowed the uniqueness of the each colorful print to stand on it's own while displayed in a group of framed prints.

Being the creative custom framers that we are, we added a little "lift" the the top mat by building up a platform on which the top mat will sit. We cut foam core strips and mounted them all around the edge of the bottom mat.

The top mat was then attached to the foam core strips.