Weighted bottoms (no smart remarks, please)

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Kit aka emrr

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The discussion of tradition on the dustcover thread reminded me of one of my pet peeves:

A hundred years ago when houses had 12-foot high ceilings, it was the fashion for pictures to be hung all the way up the wall to the ceiling. Pieces that were to be hung way above eye level were wired in the middle of the frame (this is a good way to date old frames) so that the top would lean out from the wall. This produced a foreshortening and mats were bottom weighted to counteract that effect.

WHY ARE WE STILL DOING IT?

Customers keep telling me that mats are supposed to be bigger on the bottom. NO, THEY AREN'T

To me, that looks like we put the artwork in a frame that wasn't quite the right size.

If anyone knows of a good reason to continue this practice, please tell me.

Thanks, it felt good to rant.

Kit

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Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana
 
I don't.

Actually, we try to educate the customer about why this was done, and why we don't need to do it anymore. Normally it works.

Good O'l Sue

[This message has been edited by Susan May (edited October 04, 2001).]
 
I went to equal mat borders about 10 years ago for most orders. The main reason, it was easier. Just last week I started to weight the bottom and the top of all work I frame for our gallery and also for customer's work if they have no objection.

Example, Sides 3" Top 3 1/2" and Bottom 4". I used to do this back in the early 80's and still find it very pleasing to the eye.
 
If you make your mat an even width all the way around (TGA, to go around) you will have an optical illusion that the bottom of the mat will appear narrower after it is framed. It is common practice to offset this illusion by making the mat 1/4" wider on the bottom, this is for normal 2"to 3" wide mats. Wider mats should have a proportionately wider bottom mat.

Cutting mats with a regular mat cutter is a little more work but it is worth it. As shops grow into CMCs it is no big deal and will done in even the laziest of shops as a common practice.

I want to thank Kit for the history lesson though, I had never heard that explanation for bottom weighting before.

John
 
Kit-My understanding was, way back when, house were made of stone or brick and the only place to hammer a nail was in the crown moulding that went between the ceiling and the stone wall. The rest of your story is about the same as I heard (and explained). We explain it less often as the years roll. But we still get some old schoolers, and have no problem giving them what they want. Sometimes that extra inch bumps them into the next pricing level, so no argument here
 
The Goddess is pleased with the look of a weighted bottom mat margin... Looks comfy somehow. Typically on verticals, though- it seems to maintain that tallish look. Looks somewhat blocky on most horizontals, though.

Ah, but Kit, you mentioned of The Goddess' MAJOR pet peeves...
The Goddess noticed, with more than a little annoyance, the wall decor at her neighborhood pizzaria last night. She could tolerate the cheesy (literally) plastic-framed 70's Italy travel posters, but why the heck were they hanging 6 inches down from their acoustic tile ceiling? Nobody is THAT tall, and there is no chiropractic office nearby to fix the locked-skyward neck position of every diner.
So...

Why?

The Goddess is truly baffled.
 
They aren't as easy to rip off?

Picture rail at the top kept nail clean walls. My house is almost 100 years but only has nine foot ceilings. What about the ceilings today.

I like a bit of the abstract but most customers prefer the same all around. My daughter-in-law is 5' 12", my son 6' 2", they seldom sit so you guess where their pictures are hung, hanged, too high.



[This message has been edited by JPete (edited October 04, 2001).]
 
The size of mat borders is part of the design and the right size is based on the shape and energy of the art. The real neat thing about art and framing it is that there are no rules. Bottom weight, top weight, or even side weight if it adds to the design. It's fun to frame groups of images and weight the mats to work with each other in the group - sometimes all the borders in all the pieces can be different sizes. Let your imaginations and framing run wild - too many framers have engineering backgrounds.

If you're not confident of the final look of your design, cut the mats extra big and then trim them to final size after the art is mounted. (but before you make the frame.)
 
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Kit aka emrr:
If anyone knows of a good reason to continue this practice, please tell me.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Because it's traditional?
wink.gif



We have slowly educated our customers, and will continue to do so for some time yet. You're quite correct though it does look blimmin horrible.
 
Very simply, if a piece I'm matting will be hung at eye level, I recommend even borders to the customer. If it's to be hung higher than eye level, I push....er...suggest a weighted bottom. In my gallery (read bedroom as in come up and see my framed photos, my dear>) the frames at eye level are evenly matted, those on the row above slightly weighted, and those next to the 10 foot ceiling more heavily weighted.

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Seth J. Bogdanove, CPF
22 years framing and still loving it!
No longer associated in any way, shape or form with Masterclamp!
 
On some vertical pictures I use the dimensions that Jack Bingham posted...or a variation thereof, depending on the size of the pic being framed. For example, it looks good on vertical Venetian tourist prints. Looks good on vertical format photos, too. especially those that are going to be entered in juried art shows!

Most times, though, I like an even mat.

Did you see those asymmetric, funky mats that Nona Powers (I think) designed, featured in one of the recent framing magazines?
 
I agree with JRB. A small amount of weight at the bottom cures the illusion that the bottom looks smaller than the top and sides when equal.

I also agree that weighted bottoms are much easier (like everything else) when you have a CMC.
 
Well this is a real eye-opener! I'll confess I bottom-weighted mats for several years, started cutting them even-bordered when I got lazier and busier and was using the stops on my mat cutter, started bottom-weighting again when I abandoned my production stops (another story)and continue to do so using the CMC. I am embarassed to admit that, for me, the choice was more a matter of convenience than design principles, but I've always imagined (assumed) that bottom-weighting was "correct." (The formula I learned in photography school was far more complex than what I do today.)

I am bottom-weighting mats today, more so on vertical images, but I will take a new, more critical look at these mats in light of this thread. Maybe you can teach an old dog new tricks!

[This message has been edited by RonEggers (edited October 05, 2001).]
 
As far as I know, we have one artist customer who wants her mats wider at the bottom. Looks wierd to me.

Janet, the MeisterDesigner, always asks the cust if they want bottom-weighted mats, but they never do. Except, of course, the artist.

Having a quasi-technical background, and an eye that tends towards symmetry, a bottom-weighted mat just doesn't look right.

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I'm not totally worthless. I can always be used as a bad example...
 
Kit,

Your historical explanation is just part of the "tradition". As some have mentioned here, many framers have executed weighted bottom mats, and think they "just look better".

Nona Powers of La Mesa, California teaches a PPFA course on Color Theory and Design. I feel she is the best intructor in our industry on this subject. I was lucky enough to take her two day version of this course a number of years ago (Mentally exhausting....another story). In this course we anaylized several dozen framed images side-by-side on a projection. One would have even matting, the second slide showed the same image with a weighted bottom mat. It was very interesting.

For a few images, it really didn't matter, but for many, weighting improved the overall look, balance and feel of the presentation. This was true on specific vertical and horizontal images, where as JRB & Osgood point out, cures the illusion of the bottom mat looking smaller.

Kit....Nobody has said it directly, but elluded to the fact that mats of even dimensions is simply a "lazy" habit that many framers developed over the years. It was simply easier to add the numbers on the bottom of the page, instead of determining which got the larger addition. Ron is right, in that CMC's make it too easy to bottom weight a mat if you desire....the same is to be said for the POS software!

I'll concure with John Gornall in that "Rules of Design" should be challanged and violated sometimes, but I still believe that their are "Rules of Good Design".

I think if we remember that the weighted bottom is designed to offset the illusion that the bottom mat is smaller, then we're OK. It's when an art instructor sends in a student with their work to be matted and has given them the following parameters: Side mat = 2 inches, top mat = 1-1/2inches, bottom mat = 4 inches ??????? Where did this come from?

One last bit on the subject: When we add that small amount to the bottom mat (1/4 to 1 inch typically) we are not also offsetting the optical illusion of this mat looking smaller on the bottom, we are compensating for the 1/8 inch loss as the mat package drops in the frame!

John

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The Frame Workshop of Appleton, Inc.
www.theframeworkshop.com
Appleton, Wisconsin
jerserwi@aol.com
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My five cents worth:

OK, we alll know the thing about the Victorians hanging art high on the wall.

The second theory behind weighted bottoms, other than too many Krispy Kremes, is that if the border is even all the way around, the bottom appears smaller because of an optical delusion. A weighted bottom compensates for this.

What I don't think has been mentioned here yet is that a weighted bottom can help provide a better visual balance. Take a picture, and draw an imaginary horizontal line across the center. If the bottom half of the picture has a lot more visual weight (bolder lines, stronger colors, heavier shapes) then you may want to bottom weight the mat. This "lifts" the picture up and counters the illusion that it's sinking in the frame.

It can be a subtle difference of 1/4 or 1/2 inch, or more dramatic with a 2 or 3 inch difference. Like every other design technique, it has its place. It has been abused, if you ask me, by people doing the "designer look." Like I always say, use it if you want, but know why you're doing it.

I've been weighting the mats on almost all my own stuff and a lot of customer work, and it looks great. If I could figure out the BBS codes I'd love to post a couple pictures, but alas...
 
There's really no need for this comment as it's pretty much a "ditto": I really like bottom-weighting. It seems to set the framed piece apart from the ordinary. We'll do some even bordering when it's appropriate such as the twelve pieces I'm doing now which will hang in a rigidly symmetrical arrangement. Doing really funky mat borders is one of the joys of being in charge of the design, and our customers seem to like the change of pace when I suggest it. But that's the beauty of this forum: fun to hear why others do what they do.
smile.gif


BTW, several of us here in the KC area attended a seminar last night given by Vivian Kistler. She referenced the current debate going on with the HH'rs and/or Grumblers on the usage or non- of foamboard and its outgassing. Was I ever surprised at her take on the issue! She as much as dismissed the premise, citing a study that said that UV light was what degraded the polystyrene. Therefore, if the board was not exposed to it, you may use it.

Help from anyone else who was there last night and heard this??
 
This year I attended the furniture show at High Point. Weighting, and I mean even more extreme than has been mentioned was evident everywhere. There were a number of vendors using some very odd matting techniques that while at first seemed odd, tended to grow on you.

As far as the foam board debate, I agree with Vivian. The barrier paper, if clay coat permits very little outgassing unless exposed to sunlight or heat. If you use ArtCare, the barrier papers cell technology provides even greater protection from outgassing even if it would somehow be exposed to light.

John
 
We ALWAYS bottom-weight the truly antique engravings like Gould and Audubon birds, and the eighteenth-nineteenth century small florals. But, here we're going for the traditional look, including French matting.

For m ost other work, unless the customer wants it, we'll do the weightings in the normal fashion, or go with narrow sides wide tops/bottoms or vice versa as creativity directs.

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Michael LeCompte CPF
 
Almost without exception, I weight bottoms. There are a few rules that really shouldn't be broken even by creative types--reveals all the same width, mat and moulding widths the same, etc. And to my eye, weighted bottoms *almost* always look better. Just my opinion.

MM: Thanks for bringing up the foamcore thing. That takes a weight off. There would have been a lot of customers to call and a lot of expense in replacing years of foamcore use.

One more thing. If you still cut mats on a matcutter and like to use stops, just add the amount of the weight, e.g., 1/2", to the vertical column of your measurements, and, in this example, 1" to the horizontal. You can now cut the window out of your blank at the width of your weighted bottom, say 3 1/2", all the way around--no stop changes. Now take the cut mat to your wall cutter and cut off 1/2" on the sides and top (I have a long, vertical black line marked on mine for this purpose). You have a bottom-weighted mat without the bother of scribing or changing your matcutter stops. Piece of cake.

Giving credit where due, I must admit this is a Brian Wolfe invention.
 
When bottom weighting a piece have you ever tried making the bottom exposure of the second and third mats bigger as well? This can add even more strength to the design. On a tall, thin piece we sometimes top weight a little, bottom weight a lot, and stretch the exposures both top and bottom making the piece look very tall and elegant. We refer to this as a Japanese mat - much like the layout of a Japanese painting on fabric.

In an other design we sometimes stretch the bottom exposure enough to put engraved plaques into the second mat under a picture. We use this most often in multi opening mats where we want it clear in the design which plaque goes with which picture.
 
I think Weighted bottoms go back much farther, Roman Columns had a base..."a foot to stand on." It's the weighted sides and tops that drive me crazy!! The new brochures by some of the mat companies have some really disproportionate designs...although I have sold them when the customer wanted them and I have to admit they were show stoppers.....
Just shows to go that rules ARE meant to be broken.

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Amy, CPF
CBF Portland,Maine
right on the Bay
 
Just because a thing can be done, it doesn't necessarily follow that doing it is a good idea.

Sure, I cut mats with weighted bottoms, or larger bottoms and tops if I want to emphasize the verticallity of a piece. And I don't always put the image in the center of the mat; sometimes all four margins are different sizes.

But when I do that, it's for a reason, not just because that's the way it's always been done.

It's not the weighted bottoms per se that bother me, it's mindlessly following a tradition without questioning why you're doing it.

Okay, I feel better now.

Kit

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Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana
 
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