Custom Framing

What is Custom Framing?  

Why should I consider custom framing?

Why in the world should I pay extra for a custom picture frame, you ask, when I can buy a ready-made frame at the local discount store? This is a good question, and indeed, there are many times when a mass produced picture frame is appropriate. However, when you are ready to prepare your fine art or treasured heirlooms for display, custom framing is the best answer. A properly finished custom frame is the union of artwork, mats, moulding, and other elements to create a presentation that is unique, that complements your personality, and enhances your home or office. It is a one-of-a-kind creation that you will never find in a department, discount, or furniture store. Your beautiful fine art, needlework, special personal object, wedding invitation, or hard-earned certificates should be framed in a manner that does them justice, and prevents their deterioration over time. Your custom framed artwork is a permanent investment in the decor of your home, which will outlast many of your other accessories. It is more personalized than most of your other furnishings. At Aum Arch   we will recommend the best design techniques, and color coordination to make the framing itself a fine work of art. There are many design methods we can use to make your artwork uniquely yours. We will discuss some of these now:

MOULDINGS: The frame provides structural strength to enable you to cover your art with glass or acrylic and to hang it. But the color, style and texture of the moulding add its own ingredient to the recipe of your custom-framed art. We have a huge variety of mouldings available, but your choice should coordinate with the art, the mats, and the particular effect you desire to achieve. For example, a bamboo-like moulding is great for oriental work. Mouldings made from natural woods and finishes are often used to coordinate with similar wood furnishings and to provide a “simple elegance” to the art. Mouldings can be used in combination to build a truly unique frame that will add additional width and color to your custom-framed art. A fillet, a narrow moulding inlaid inside the mat, coordinated with the frame moulding can be used to provide an inspired multi-dimensional look to your art. The possibilities are nearly endless, but we can help you choose the best combination for your very own presentation. The frame must be cut and assembled carefully to ensure tight corners and structural strength. Frames with bold, deeply embossed designs cannot always be cut so that the patterns match together at the corners. This is so because there is no industry-wide mathematical correlation between design spacing and even standard frame dimensions, much less the infinite sizes available in custom framing. In these cases, it is sometimes necessary to fill the patterns at the corner seams and blend the colors so the mismatch is not noticeable.

How much does the piece weigh? This will determine width and type of moulding. Does the moulding need to match another piece or does it need to match your favorite chair? We can do the best of all worlds for your personal framing item. There are many styles of moulding to choose from. They range from imported to domestic woods and polystyrene. They vary in widths from 1/4 of an inch to six inches wide

Mounting/Matting:  Aesthetic decision and functional purpose! It provides a spacer to protect paper art or photographs from direct contact with the glass. This is necessary, particularly in humid climates, to prevent the art from coming in contact with condensation or sticking to the glass and permanently damaging it. For example, if a photograph is framed in direct contact with the glass, in a few years, the silver oxide emulsion will adhere to the glass, causing unrecoverable damage to the photo. The spacing provided by the mat will prevent this while it also provides structural support for the artwork.
 

Acid free Mat Boards Made of wood pulp buffered with calcium carbonate to slow the damage caused by the acid and lignin.

From an aesthetics point of view, the mats provide several design qualities that enhance your artwork. One or more mats can provide depth, width and color to your framed art. Two or more mats remove the flatness, giving your framed piece a three-dimensional look. This enhances any depth that the artist intended to create in the original work. Your artwork needs some space around it to prevent distractions from the surrounding wall treatment. Mats provide this space, allowing your art to be seen clearly. Matboards now come in hundreds of colors, textures and appearances. The choice of mat colors can be used to achieve several benefits. Carefully chosen mats can often enhance the artwork, while providing a transition to the room’s decor. Fabric mats can be used to add texture to your art. Mats covered in silk or smooth linen achieve elegance if your decor is more formal. Some of our customers change their mats when they change their decor, to maintain the coordination of their artwork. A discussion of matting options would not be complete without mentioning quality options. As recently as two decades ago, there were basically two options for matting – low quality/acidic paper mats (still referred to as “paper mats” in the industry) or 100% rag mats. Rag mats at the time only came in white. That is why one only saw artwork framed in white mats in museums and art galleries. Today, there are three main options – there are still paper mats and we still have rag mats, only now, rag mats are available in a full range of colors. The third option are archival mats, which are a blend of rag and paper, but which have been treated to remove most of the acid, lignin and other impurities. These mats are suitable for matting all but the most valuable artwork, and they come in a huge variety of colors and textures. Paper mats can be damaging to art, which is why we don't sell or recommend them. We use archival mats, and sometimes use rag mats when appropriate. You can tell whether your art is framed with paper mats or archival mats by examining the bevel cut in the mat opening. An archival mat will be a pure white without any perceptible layering. A paper mat will be off-white, and you sometimes will see the layers where the mat has been built up by lamination. The paper mats will usually turn yellow or darker after a while, due to the acidic materials used.

Dry Mounting: Dry mounting is a permanent mounting process where the art is glued to a mounting board, using heat and pressure. The mounting board is usually a foam core board, but other boards can be used depending on the circumstances of how the art will be used. A tissue type adhesive is placed between the art and the mounting board. This combination is then inserted into a vacuum press and heated up to activate the adhesive while the press applies pressure.

If a piece of art is to be conservation framed then dry mounting cannot be used, since it would adversely affect the value of the art. Dry mounting is used when the aesthetic appearance of the art warrants it to be flat.

An inexpensive replaceable movie poster, art poster or music poster would be good examples of items that would be dry mounted.

The Picture along side has got waves/ripples because it has not been Dry Mounted properly

Picture Frame Glass: First, let’s discuss the need. All sunlight and some artificial light contain an invisible electromagnetic component called ultraviolet (UV) light. These light waves are much shorter than visible light and contain more energy (the same energy that causes you to sunburn). This higher energy creates a greater degree of heat and causes more rapid deterioration of the molecular structure of the pigments used in printing. Picture Frame glass should be used whenever you are framing sentimental, valuable, limited edition and one-of-a-kind artwork. Picture Frame Glass is clear glass (preferably float glass) to which an ultraviolet (UV) inhibiting film has been applied. Picture Frame Glass blocks about 97 percent of the UV rays, compared to 46 to 50 percent blocked by regular clear and non-glare glass.
 

In today's world of picture framing many glass products are available. They can essentially be classified into 2 categories:

1. Regular ...also known as clear

2. Anti-Reflective...specialty product that is as clear as regular glass and more anti-reflective than non-glare.

Both these types of glass are available with UV (Ultraviolet) filtering capabilities often used when conservation framing is needed or fading must be minimized as much as possible. Acrylic is also available when weight or breakage is of a concern. Acrylic is currently available only in regular or non-glare forms with or without UV capabilities.

		Picture Frame Glass Should be of 2mm (for smaller frames) or 3mm(for bigger frames) so that the ready frame is not bulky.
Plain Glass	Non-Reflecting Glass