Frames worry people more than they should. The frame is there to finish the edge of the piece and connect it to the room, and a couple of simple rules settle most decisions. On many of our made-to-order pieces, the frame is a choice on the product page; this is how I'd make it.
1. Start with the room, not the art
Look at the wood and metal already in the room: the floor, a table, chair legs, lamp bases, door handles. A frame that repeats one of them ties the piece into the room. A frame that matches nothing looks like it arrived from somewhere else, however good it is with the image.
- Oak floors and pale wood furniture: natural wood.
- Walnut, teak or dark stained wood: dark wood.
- Black metal, black window frames or a modern kitchen: black.
- White walls and white trim, a pared-back room: white, or no frame.
- Brass lamps and warm metal: gold. Chrome and nickel: silver.
2. What each frame does to the piece
Black reads as a crisp line around the image. It sharpens a piece and makes it feel slightly smaller and more graphic: good for photographs, black and white, and anything you want to look precise.
White blends into a pale wall and lets the image do all the work. The piece reads larger and softer.
Natural wood adds warmth without weight. It's the most forgiving frame I know: it sits with almost any image and any room.
Dark wood adds weight and age. It suits landscapes, traditional subjects and rooms with dark furniture.
Gold and silver are for pieces that want a little ceremony, often older images and traditional rooms. A thin gold frame can also work in a modern room as the one warm accent.
3. Floater frame or no frame?
For a canvas, the choice is between a floater, a frame with a small gap between its inside edge and the canvas, so the canvas looks suspended in it, and a gallery wrap, where the canvas wraps round a deep stretcher and hangs with no frame at all.
A floater finishes a canvas and gives it a defined edge; it suits traditional and transitional rooms and pieces hung in a group. A gallery wrap reads as the largest, most modern version of an image; it suits large pieces on their own. Framed canvas, gallery wrap or glass? has more.
4. When does a mat help?
A mat is a plain border cut around a print under glass. It sets the image back from the glass, gives it room, and makes a small image look more considered. Mats suit photographs, botanicals and detailed prints you see up close: in a hallway, above a desk, in a gallery wall.
Remember that the size on our product pages is the outside of the frame. A wide mat means less of that size is image. If you want the image itself to read big from across a room, choose no mat, or canvas.
5. Should all the frames in a room match?
On one wall, yes, or at least come from one family: all wood, or all black. On a gallery wall, matching frames are what make different images look like a collection. Across a room, frames only need to get along: wood above the sofa and black in the reading corner is fine if the room has both wood and black in it.
Next step
Filter by frame in Shop art, or try two frames side by side on your wall in Your Blank Wall.
Questions we get asked
On some pieces it does. The product page shows the price for each frame choice before you add it to your cart.
On some made-to-order pieces, Custom frame is an option: our Burlington studio quotes it by email before you pay, and confirms its timing with you.
Black for a crisp, modern look, natural wood for a warmer one, usually with a white mat either way.