Wide bottoms

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Skippy the Bush Kangaroo

CGF II, Certified Grumble Framer Level 2
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May 10, 2005
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Australian Bush
Ok I know this has been talked about in the past (I looked up the archives, but couldn't find the answer) and I dont want to open the can of worms, but what is the reason for a wider mat at the bottom.

There seems to be either you need it or you dont. But why when and how did it come about and why did it change or become a debate issue?

I heard it old fashion due to when we had higher cielings and the art was hung higher, and you looked up. but that might be another framing myth.
 
Page 20 Cutting,Carving,& Decorating mats by Brian Wolf "...when the mat's boarders are the same all the way around, the picture appears to sink in the mat." It's called weighted bottom.

David
 
I don't know about you,

but my bottom started getting wider when I had my first child. Maybe it was the extra food I ate, or maybe it was my hips spreading, or maybe it was just gravity - but that's when it happened to me!!

I really don't need it - I wish I could do away with it - but it just won't go.......

PS - exactly who has been talking about and debating about my wide bottom in the past???

(sorry - I just couldn't resist!!!! please forgive me for poking fun at your totally serious question!!)

Handy
 
oh good!! I didn't want to insult you - but I just had to do it!! LOL!!
 
Hi Dave,
If you search for 'bottom weighting' you will fine quite a lot on this subject.
 
Hey Handy,

Don't worry, when I saw this thread I thought the same as you... But hey, my motto is... you've got it ... flaunt it...honey!!!

Sorry OZ couldn't resist either!!!

But you are right I heard the same as you, as in the olden days, the ceilings were higher and you had to look up, and that pictures were bottom heavy.

I still use this method.

catch ya later

Marion
 
My guess is that we SHOULD weight the bottoms of pictures, but with the advent of mat cutting machines (the C&H type) it became faster to cut with equal width, so bottom weighting kind of went out of style. I know I should do it, but I always forget a little. Unless we are putting into a ready made and want it to look a little less readymadeish.
 
I was expecting something about J-Lo
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Oh, well. Never mind.
 
since my bottom is already a wide topic - i'll address the "topic at hand".

It is based on the eye's perceptive adjusting the focas image. In the "olden" days, pictures hung at height were matted larger at the bottom so that when you looked at it (looked upwards) the eye was tricked to see it as "equal" around all sides.

Now the only time I bottom weight a mat is for 1) a design element and I use a 1/3 2/3 ratio generally, from my college art training. so if the sides are 2" the bottom will be about 6".
2) if I have a vertical piece of artwork, I will top and bottom weight to kee the item looking vertical. generally adding a 1/2" to 1" depending on the design.

For those interested the book Color & Design for the picture framer, written by Nona Powers (available through PFM) gives good information in chapter VI!
 
When the art hung from wires off of the frame moulding it tended to lean forward.

Weighting the bottom supposedly made it look more even all the way around.

Eventually it became a design technique.

Thats what I was taught and what I tell customers when they are interested.

I was thinking of the queen song "fat bottomed girls" when I read the post.
 
Sandra and Marion,

… thanks, but that’s really more than I wished to know about you guys.

I heard it old fashion due to when we had higher cielings and the art was hung higher, and you looked up. but that might be another framing myth.
Click to expand...
Dave,

That’s gotta be a myth. With perspective being what it is, if you’re looking up at a picture that is hung above eye level, the bottom mat border will naturally appear wider than the top, so a bottom weighted mat would exaggerate that perspective.

I vote for “it just looks better”. I usually weigh my bottom borders 20% wider than the top. To me, it gives it balance without drawing attention to itself.
 
The reason for bottom weighting a mat is that the "optical center" of a square or rectangular design is slightly above the geometric center of the piece.

Check this out...

www.math.duke.edu/education/ccp/resources/write/design/graphic7.html

I always bottom weight a mat anywhere from 1/8" to 1/2". A bottom weighted mat also says "custom" as ready-cut mats are almost always equally weighted due to the fact that the manufacturer doesn't know wether it will be used horizontally or vertically and doesn't want to have to produce two different SKU's for each size.

An exception to bottom weighting is when a print has some type of natural bottom weighting such as a title or signature/number along the bottom edge of the exposed image area. I will usually not bottom weight such an image as it naturally is bottom weighted.

If you don't bottom weight an image, most will not look correct as the viewer's eye is not drawn naturally to the optical center and the bottom of the mat will appear to be smaller than the other edges.

Dave Makielski
 
I find I can make a compelling argument either for or against bottom weighting - depending on the mat cutting equipment I'm using.

I bottom weight 1/4"-1/2". Among other things, it compensates for the tendency of the mat to settle to the bottom of the frame.

When I was using a C&H cutter with the production stops, I rarely bottom weighted. I told my customers that was an obsolete practice.

If someone notices the bottom weighting, it's too much.
 
I've heard a few different schools of thought on how they came about.

1. The whole perspective thing, and compensating for the foreshortening caused when the pictures were hung high and tilted.

2. The optical illusion mentioned by Brian Wolf.

3. It's just the way it should be and it's more pleasing to the eye. Trees are wider at the bottom, mountains are wider at the bottom, classic architectural elements such as columns are wider at the bottom (entasis).

4. Some say all mats should be bottom weighted by at least 1/8" since the mat will slip down in the frame anyway.

They all make sense in their own ways, and I tend to think a bottom-weighted mat just looks better.

Some thinks do need to bottom weighted. If a picture has more visual weight in the lower half, a bottom weighted mat "lifts" it and keeps it from sinking down in the frame. How much to weight it is a matter of taste and depends on the look you're going for, but about a 1/4 to 1/3 weighting seems to work nicely. So for a mat with 4" top and sides, the bottom would be 5-6" wide.

For smallish pictures I've been playing around with a subtle weighting on top as well as the bottom. For instance, 3" on sides, 3 1/2" on top and 4 1/2" on the bottom. I think I like the effect.

Images that are strongly vertical, especially Asian art, do very nicely with elongated mats. Say 3" on the sides, 4" on the top and 5" on the bottom. This would accentuate the vertical lines and echo the feel of traditional scrolls.
 
Anne...goes to show ya'...Somewhere I think I still have a pair of "bellbottoms" from my high school hippie days. If you stick around long enough things come back in style. :cool:

Reminds of Jimmy Buffet's song..."Wish I had a pencil thin mustache".

Dave Makielski
 
"Unweighted mats are just the hallmark of a lazy or uneducated framer."

-Ron Yates- 1971

I've been weighting them ever since. I'm with FramerDave, they just look better.
 
Weighting a mat provides visual balance. It looks right. The Parthenon has columns that tilt inward so the eye sees them straight. The steps are curved upward so the eye sees them flat. We see in a curved way, not flat.

All mats don't need weighting. Long horizontal rectangles, some circles and ovals, art that is flat such as a mat on a Warhol or else lots of weighting looks good. If it looks short when it's on the wall, it needed weighting. Thin mats don't need weighting. The larger the mat the more weighting it can handle. It's all up to the eye, and hopefully you see it as you are designing so it doesn't look short when the customer hangs it on their wall.
 
I've used weighting on many frames. It only takes a few seconds to reset the cutter for it. Some prints that are signed in the border, I'll show a white border around the print, with this weighted on the bottom. In this case, I'll cut the mats even all around.
John
 
I think I'm disagreeing with John here. If a print has a weighted border because of a signature it doesn't look right to me if the mat isn't weighted also. I do like wide bottoms but if I said so out loud with my wife near by I'd probably get whacked with a ruler.
 
to finnish the thought for those uninitiated...

"Fat bottom mats, they make the rockin' world go round." (with appy-polly-logies to Freddie M.)
I think that about says it all.

Hmmmm, I have been looking for a new sig line, now if I could get Kit to translate it into Latin....

I have tried to stay away from this thread, and just couldn't.
 
Wally, I have wanted to post the Queen lyrics myself, I used restraint........I'm so glad somebody else read it the same way.......
 
Originally posted by Baer Charlton:
"Unweighted mats are just the hallmark of a lazy or uneducated framer."

-Ron Yates- 1971

I've been weighting them ever since. I'm with FramerDave, they just look better.
Click to expand...
I agree that they do look better --- except ----, always an exception (I was only to write "but(t)" except that seemed a little questionable due to the subject!
) except when the frame size is small. 16X20's I like a 1/4" but smaller I tend to an 1/8th or no weighting at all.

I have also had customers come in and complain that the matting is "off" when I have weighted it. I tell them the rationale for it and tell them I will change it for them if they'd like me to, FOC, they tend to look at me like I'm trying to "cover up" my mistakes!
 
AND, all those gals were on BICYCLES! Something for everybody in that poster...

I bottom-weight 95% of the mats I cut. The exceptions include exaggerated horizontal images and squares I want to keep square. I also don't like the way slightly horizontal images end up in a square frame. Something about that bugs me.

I like the way vertical images with a bottom weighted mat maintain their original proportion. I usually make the bottom mat margin at least an inch wider than the rest, that way it looks deliberate.

I just wish I could have maintained my original proportion...

edie the twomoredaysuntilmynextvacation goddess
 
I bottom weight 95% of my mats too. I explain the matting technique at the design table to customers and there isn't a problem later. Most of my customers seem to be aware of bottom weighting already and often request it.

Most of my weighting is minimal...1/8"-1/2" up to 20X24 or so...the subject and frame design also dictate... Rules of design are only guidelines...

I just use my God-given sense of design and many years of seeing poor design and what doesn't work. :cool:

Dave Makielski
 
Here's my two cents...I also always weight 1/4" to allow for the mat to rest on the frame's rabbet. When I'm selling the job, I always make it a point to ask the client where and how it will be hung. If the piece is being hung at eye level, I'll stick with even borders 90% of the time. If it's being hung higher, I'll add anywhere from 1" to 3" depending on how high it will be hung to allow for foreshortening (it's not a myth). I do the same for the artwork on my walls at home being that almost every available inch of wallspace is being used.
 
Originally posted by wpfay:

"Fat bottom mats, they make the rockin' world go round." (with appy-polly-logies to Freddie M.)
I think that about says it all.

Hmmmm, I have been looking for a new sig line, now if I could get Kit to translate it into Latin....
Click to expand...
"тучные нижние циновки, они делают rockin ' мир пойти кругом."

Can't pull off Latin - how 'bout some Russian?
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"He's a truck drivin' man - don't pull no punches..."
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Well, there's always one in the crowd ....

Typically, I cut even mats ... but often, when the art dictates, usually tall pieces that are either Oriental or some contemporary/avant-garde, we'll use Oriental Proportions (2/3/4).

In general, I don't weight ... I think it looks old-fashioned ... wide mats look MUCH better.

But let's hear it for Fat-Bottomed-Girls...!!!

(I kinda like the Spinal Tap lyrics better... ;)
 
We usually use a wider mat border on the bottom because "it just looks better". I have had engineers return the picture and point out that we made a mistake and the bottom is wider than the other borders. Can't you just visualize an engineer taking it home and measuring and comparing and then slowly getting a head of steam built up that results in a return to the shop. We now take a bit more time and tell them ahead of time that we will be weighting the bottom. We never had to re-do one after explaining that unless it is wider, it will appear narrower.

The worst are civil engineers, the best are electrical engineers.

You will really confuse them if you add weight to both top and bottom as we do on long narrow pieces. Sometime, try and weight one side for effect on a very small print--talk about confusion.

Jack Cee
 
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