Guides for people who sell and hang art

Sizes, framing, hanging heights and listing photos — written from measurements, not from adjectives.

Mat width and the frame size it produces

Mat width and the frame size it produces

A mat is not decoration. It is the layer that absorbs the difference between the shape of a print and the shape of a frame, and its width is arithmetic before it is taste: pick the border, and the frame size is already decided.

Print sizes and aspect ratios: what matches what

Print sizes and aspect ratios: what matches what

There are dozens of print sizes and only five ratios worth knowing. Sizes inside one ratio are the same file scaled; sizes across two ratios are different files, and treating them as one is where white bands and cropped signatures come from.

What belongs in an art print listing's photos

What belongs in an art print listing's photos

Five photos, each answering a different question. The order matters more than the count: the first image has to survive being cropped square, and the one that actually sells the piece is the one that shows how big it is.

Listing a printable when there is nothing to photograph

Listing a printable when there is nothing to photograph

A buyer of a digital print pays before seeing anything except the images you built and the description you wrote. That puts two jobs on the gallery that a physical listing splits with the object itself: proving what the file is, and proving how large it will read on a wall.

Got your mockup?

The app does the same thing with a lot more room to work in, and it exports at full resolution.

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