Introduction - Buying the right type of picture mount.
First of all
you need to know what you want from your mounts, then you can choose the
right mounts at the right price. So we'll deal with that first. What is your
priority? Cheapness, best appearance, conservation, long shelf life? Are
they for re-sale, or for your own use?
Mounts
- what are they for?
Well, depends
which side of the shop counter you are stood on.... But the long and the short of
it is that a mount's main purpose is to space artwork off the glass
in a frame, to protect it. Its next purpose is to enhance the look of the
artwork, to make it look better.... or sell quicker. Thats the
perspective from the art establishment, and the picture framer.
For the
customer it can be a different story.... A mount is also an economical way
of fitting a non-standard picture fit into a standard sized (off the shelf) frame, or it can
be used to crop a
photo/picture.
Standard
Boards vs Premium boards (Conservation)- opinion:
If you are
only
re-selling cheap photos, prints or items of small value etc, as a picture framer I
am going to stick my neck out and slap one of the "rules" around a bit - If
you are a budget item/ebay/low value item re-seller, then you want the mounts at the right price, without
bells and whistles, and in a board that helps the item sell, looks fairly good, and
lasts reasonably well..... thats why they make budget boards in the
first place! So ask yourself do you really need more
expensive mounts for low value items, or even when the picture framer
is going to change the mount later anyway? (imho) as a framer, for
almost 15 years, with a shop making upwards of 15,000 frames a year with
mounts I reckon I'm not far off the mark saying you can count on any framing
counter worth its salt recommending to the customer to have an acid free
mount if the job warrants it. Given the choice, when they see them side by
side, the retail customer will always choose the white core acid free mount,
many will also come into the shop and ask if they are conservation
quality or acid free nowadays.
Unless your item is easily
replaced, you should opt for the acid free mount option. Now, in the 21st
century, there is a much greater awareness of the benefits of acid free
framing materials, so standard (budget) boards should be for budget items.
Many board manufacturers have dropped, or are planning to drop their
"standard" neutral ranges.
So It depends on the
artwork in question, standard neutral ph mounts will do the job for the average
cheap replaceable
photo or print, no worries, and for everything else you should be ordering the Acid free
white core (conservation) board. There is very little difference in price.
The conservation boards DO look better, they are a little thicker, and most
importantly if you are reselling from a shop they last better on display,
the bevels do not go brown, the colours do not fade, they look that
bit sharper, and they even feel that bit heavier (perceived value
from the customers perspective). You cant go wrong using conservation
standard mounts for everything considering the small difference in price
compared to budget boards.
Mount
Colours
If you are
re-selling its almost
always best to stick to the tried and tested colours, the buying public is
not brave or adventurous, and you don't want to lose a sale because the
mount wont go with their animal print wallpaper and dungeon themed purple MDF
kitchen. The telly has a lot to answer for.... Our best sellers are
textured white or textured cream, plain cream or white. And for photos its
almost always black
or white (textured or smooth white and smooth black). This is not just
tradition, the fact of the matter is that photographs contain a lot of
detail compared to many prints and pictures, so a plain coloured dark or
light mount does focus the eye onto the object in the mount. Many
photographers like a very wide border, and recommend a plain frame that does
not distract from the picture, often black, plain wood, or metal. Dark blues and bottle greens
for mounts are great on the
right items too, particularly trading cards, cigarette cards etc. When
framed these colours look particularly "rich" behind glass.
If the mount is for your own
picture, for your home or office, the choice is purely one of personal
taste, you can be conservative, or as wild as you want, there are colours of
board to suit every taste. What will suit your environment, your personal
choice of colour, or a colour that will enhance the picture, or do you want
to match it with another you have already. Perhaps you have seen a mounted
picture somewhere and you want to match the "look". Whatever you need, we
should be able to accomodate.
Double
mounts The difference a double
mount can make is fantastic. Well worth the extra (well, double actually)
cost to enhance the look of any picture. Added benefits are that once framed
the picture is further from the glass, and the mounting can give an effect
of depth. Always worth thinking about. Or why not a triple mount, or more!
Backing
Boards Budget backing boards or
liners are cut from 1100micron (1.1mm) cream coloured woodpulp board,
1000 or 1500 micron greyboard, or 1200 to 1250 micron mountboard which we buy in
specially. Cheap,
tried and tested, does the job. We also cut smaller liners (which
double as backs) from
neutral PH or acid free mount board 1200, 1250 or 1400 microns.
For larger mounts we invariably specify
one of the products from "Art-Bak".
Art Bak has been known by many names in the past, and due to the sort of
litigation and mind numbing tales of lawyers that will make you want to lose
your will to live we wont go into the various trade names here, but
sometimes we ship the same product from the same factory and it has "corricor"
on the back. Sometimes it has nothing printed on the back. But suffice
to say its formaldehyde free, guaranteed for 300 years, and 99% of the jobs
(both framed and just mounted) in our workshops are backed with this
product. Using this you just cant go wrong. Customers like it, its
lightweight to post and deliver, its durable, and looks good.
Hardboard? it
can be full of acid, and will damage your artwork.
Picture
Framing MDF = fine to use, providing you use a barrier layer/liner.
We cut it with a special machine, we never sand it. The dust is dangerous.
There is also
Foamcore (great) and for some items we also used plastic correx® board - we
have them all in stock most of the time. As a rule of thumb we use whichever backing is most
suitable for the item. For the purposes of mounts you are ordering
online we'd suggest standard liners for smaller mounts, and art-bak for
larger mounts. And if you intend putting the items straight into a ready
made frame, and they are of low value, then the liners are optional, and the
art-bak is not necessary as the frames will have backs anyway.
The best
unbiased and sensible guidelines to mount board specifications can be found
on the website of the Fine Art Trade Guild,
www.fineart.co.uk.
three tiles surface mounted with a
spacer mount to create a box-framed effect in a 1" wide limed pine frame
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