High School Framings .......

Framerguy

PFG, Picture Framing God
Joined
Apr 12, 2001
Posts
7,261
Loc
Destin, Florida
I promised somebody awhile back that I would post some ideas that work for me with framing high school things.

Here are a few that I have done on a repetitive basis each school year and I hope they will give some of you some toughts to ponder to do something similar.

This is a graduation framing that I offer each spring. I place a display piece in a couple of the area schools and they get good responses from the parents who don't know what to get their kids for graduation.

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It consists of the cover and inside of the graduation invitation and the namecard that accompanies the invitation, a graduation tassle, and a small photo of the graduate. I cut either an oval opening or what is pictured for the photo and namecard, I float mount the 2 sections of invitation on foamboard, and attach the tassle with very small dabs of adhesive at the top of the knot and on the loop where it overlaps the invitation. A fairly shallow gallery frame deep enough to house the floats and the tassle and all mats in the school colors and you have a nice grad. gift for under a hundred bucks. It takes very little time to lay these out once you do a few and I retail them for $99.95. (Of course!)

I do team group shots also. This is an annual one that I do for the local highschool's scholar bowl group. They go to Nationals almost every year and they have alot of competition wins under their belts.

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Each participant's name is under the photo and their year's awards are listed on each side. The football coach supplies the "Wildcat" decals that are on their helmets to place above the photo. (Apologies for the crappy photos but you get the idea, I hope.)

This was a State Champion football team in another town.

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Another float mount with the medal draped over and behind one of the school color matboards.

Last 2 are collages of lady athletes and just a few of their awards.

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I hope that these give some of you some ideas for promoting your framing in the local schools. They are all easy to do and will make you a few bucks if you go out to the schools and promote them.

Framerguy
 
Tom, these are great. How do you promote them? I designed a brochure that I sent to all the Seniors with several "packages" available from just a photo and invitation all the way to "all the bells and whistles!"

For a local school that I am very involved with, I even came up with an offer that gave a certain percentage back to "any department you choose" because those of us with kids in the band especially, it's one fund raiser after another all the time! :eek:

Right now, I am doing matting for the "student of the month" (all 4 grades in H/S) that will hang in the lobby of a bank that partners with the school. Then the student will get to keep these. (Well of course there's a matted piece that says "Matting provided by Newman Valley Studio" then phone number and web site.

Again, great stuff Tom!

Betty
 
Tom, I was always at a loss as to what to do with ribbons. I love how you've handled them, especially the one on the championship team.

Thanks for the ideas.

Kit
 
Nice work, Tom. This is the kind of sharing I enjoy.

I will be framing the class of 2003 piece to go on the high school wall this coming year, gratis, as it is my daughter's senior year. These are usually about 4' by 4', and include the photos of all 200+/- seniors, their names, a tassle, etc.

Rather then cutting openings for that many, I'm thinking of mounting them on yellow Brite Core, or the green core (colors are gold and green), and reverse beveling them. Same thing with the names, but only in rows at the bottom of each row of pictures as these hang high above the lockers in the halls. This is not a conservation project, although I will treat it thay way as much as I can.

I'd be must appreciative of any of your good ideas. You clearly have more experience with such things than I do, so far.
 
Thanks, Tom! Just the kind of promos I'm looking for to tie our senior photography into our framing more. Question: Do you ask someone if you can frame their stuff in exchange for using it as a display for a while? If not, how do you obtain the ribbons, tassels, awards, etc for the displays? I was planning on doing something like this for Biz after she graduates this year. She isn't an athlete but has lots of awards and ribbons for band and choir plus forensics and NHS.

Every year we do a group photo of the senior class and frame it for the school. We usually order a 16 by 20 which I trim down to about a 10 by 16 or so (just enough to include the people and cut out the extra background.) Then I mount it on a 16 x 20 piece of 8 ply using pma and the whole class signs it. When it comes back, I put it in a black metal frame (black and orange are their school colors) with glass and spacers. We donate it to the school with our signature on the picture. Just another piece of the marketing puzzle we use for high school seniors.
 
Good stuff, Tom. And how are you keeping that blasted tassle corraled? We finally just tell the recipient to turn it back rightside up and shake back into place.
How 'bout you?
 
Originally posted by AnneL:
Thanks, Tom! Just the kind of promos I'm looking for to tie our senior photography into our framing more. Question: Do you ask someone if you can frame their stuff in exchange for using it as a display for a while? If not, how do you obtain the ribbons, tassels, awards, etc for the displays?
Good question, Anne. First of all, the only "display" that I posted here is the graduation announcement. The others are simply customer pieces that are no longer around the gallery.

I told the customer of the grad. piece that I would like to use their son for a display piece and would "pay" for all the materials and assembly if they would supply the photo, announcement, tassle, et al. Ego did the rest! They brought in 2 of everything and I kept one of the finished pieces and sold them the other at a little over my cost.

My policy on that unruly tassle, MM, is "Up is up and down is down and never the twain shall meet!" In English, I tell my customers that the tassle is free to move inside the package to give it a more natural looking hang. If they mess with the frame package and get the tassle hung on something, they can shake it loose for free or bring it back and I will get it free for a $10.00 teardown fee! Nobody has brought any back yet so the only one that I have seen stuck on anything in the package is MY display which was like that after the move in '95 to my present location.

No, it is not fixed yet. But it does drive the point home about handling it properly to the customer!

Framerguy
 
I've found the best place to advertise these are on the wall of your business. The one I did nine years ago for my daughter, the day before graduation still makes sales. They are usually people who have many awards and medals to incorporate. It's generally a $200 or more sale. One thing I've found helpful, is using a 1 1/4 inch mat with a spacer and then the other mat has room for mounted medals as well as openings, even better in a double rabit frame and I always insist on using suede because it is much easier to work with. I tell people they will have to trust me and I've not had anyone disappointed yet.

Word of mouth and all of the other parents who go to the graduation parties. I've also had people dig out their things from years ago and give as a gift to a son, daughter or spouse.

One particular one, last year about Dec. 15th was of Vietnam medals, letters of commendation etc. I was so sure I wouldn't have time but with the readymade frames I had on hand and a relenting moment I made them happy and she keeps finding more things to bring in.

If this is a repeat for some pretend you forgot also. ;)
 
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