A number of years back, a client came in and asked Dana,  our shop manager, to put together a frame that showed off a collection of business cards belonging to one of the upper level executives at a Chicago firm that would show the cards in a chronological sequence and float them between two layers of glass with matting all around. Because everything was mounted between 2 sheets of glass, you can see the wall color behind the frame. Here, we photographed it with a piece of ivory mat board behind it. In another shot at the bottom of this page, you can see it with a black mat board behind it.

Dana mounted all the cards on 8 ply mat board and cut them out with a 45 degree bevel all around each one. She cut a double mat out of Crescent 5598 Etched Black mat board with a liner mat of Crescent 1646 Sky Blue, with the opening outlining the array of the business cards as they were mounted on the bottom layer of glass in an "Ojo de Dios" pattern. The frame used was a Gemini 3802 matte black with silver lines on the moulding edges. Spacers were used to push the mat up against the glass and leave an air space between the two layers of glass sufficiently large enough for the platform-mounted business cards to not touch the top layer of glass. Glass used was Tru-Vue AR anti-reflective glass.

Dana also had to add a small bit of verbiage at the bottom of the array to complete the design. This was all done in less than 6 days. Glass size was 26 x 19.

Frame #2: Cards matted and surrounded by metallic fillets

The first photo, the card collage with the two ties in it, was the original collage that the client wanted changed. They saw the above collage on our website, knew that we could design something really nice to replace the card collage with the two ties in it (we have no idea what the ties stood for or why they were in the frame). The frame on the right is what Dana came up with. What a difference! Each card is surrounded by a metal leafed fillet, with each card floated on mat board and all the openings arrayed in a "fan" design, instead of a rectangular, squared grid. This gave the layout a bit more visual interest. Below are a couple closeups of the upper left and upper right corner of the new frame. We have either erased or blurred the client's name, so those photos are not out of focus.

The card collage "before" the redesign.

The card collage "after" the redesign.

 The frame is a Fotiou olive-wood veneer with a metal leafed inner lip. The matting is a blue suede and the fillets surrounding each card are, also, a metal leafed fillet from Larson-Juhl. Glass is anti-reflective Tru-Vue AR .

If you have had a varied career and worked at a lot of different companies or, perhaps, you collect business cards, playing cards, baseball cards, or other types of collectible cards,  why not bring in them in with any related memorabilia and let us design a shadowbox for you that tells a story?

Photos by kind permission of T. Vandam @ Brand Connections

Framing designed , executed and photographed by Dana Fisher, MCPF