How to Frame a Poster Properly (Without Spending More on the Frame Than the Art)

Yes — every size VORAROSA sells is a stock frame size, so you can buy the frame off a shelf and skip the framer entirely. In Europe, A4, A3, A2, A1, 30×40, 40×50 and 50×70 cm are all sold ready-made; in the US, 8×10, 11×14, 16×20, 18×24 and 24×36 inches are the same story. The best value in the whole catalogue is an A3 print at €25 dropped into a €15-25 ready-made 40×50 cm frame with a mat: under €50 all in, and it reads like a €150 custom job.

Every size here matches a frame you can buy today

The European sizes come from ISO 216, standardised in 1975 out of the German DIN 476 norm of 1922 — the system Walter Porstmann built around a 1:√2 ratio so each size halves into the next. That is why A4, A3, A2 and A1 are stocked by every framing aisle from Lisbon to Helsinki. The 30×40 / 40×50 / 50×70 cm run is a separate, equally universal European standard, and it is the one IKEA builds its Ribba and Knoppäng lines around.

Two sizes need a warning. 12×18 in (€32) and 16×24 in (€39) are 3:2 poster ratios, not photo-frame ratios. Frames exist, but they are a special order in most shops. Buy those two only if you already own the frame or intend to have one made.

Buy the size your country's shops stock, not the ratio you prefer

This is the single decision that determines whether framing costs €20 or €120. A European buyer who orders 11×14 in will spend more on custom framing than on the print. An American who orders A2 will find nothing on the shelf at Target or Michaels.

Choose the print size that matches the frames sold within walking distance of your flat. The composition survives the change; your budget does not survive a custom moulding.

Ratios differ slightly between systems, so a design will show marginally more or less breathing space depending on which you pick: A-sizes are 1:1.414, the 40×50 and 8×10 formats are 1:1.25, and 24×36 in is 1:1.5. Browse the full catalogue of 196 designs and pick the size line first, the image second.

A mat is the cheapest thing that makes a print look expensive

A passe-partout (mat, mount board) is a card window that sits between print and glass. It does three jobs: it adds visual weight, it centres the eye, and — the part nobody mentions — it holds the print roughly 1.4 mm off the glass so the surface can never fuse to it.

The trick is to buy a frame one size up and let the mat fill the gap. Ready-made frames are usually sold with the mat already cut for exactly this:

• A4 print in a 30×40 cm frame — 4.5 cm at the sides, 5.2 cm top and bottom
• A3 print in a 40×50 cm frame — 5.2 cm sides, 4 cm top and bottom
• 30×40 cm print in a 40×50 cm frame — a clean 5 cm all round
• A2 print in a 50×70 cm frame — 4 cm sides, 5.7 cm top and bottom
• 8×10 in print in an 11×14 in frame — 1.5 in sides, 2 in top and bottom, the most common pre-cut mat sold in America
• 11×14 in print in a 16×20 in frame — 2.5 in sides, 3 in top and bottom

If you are cutting your own, use the framer's convention: cut the window 5 mm smaller than the print on each edge so the paper is held, and add 10-20% extra depth at the bottom border. That weighted bottom compensates for the eye reading the centre of a frame as slightly higher than it is — an old practice, and the reason museum mats look calm rather than bottom-heavy.

Attach the print with two hinges of acid-free tape along the top edge only. Never tape all four sides. Paper expands and contracts with room humidity, and a print sealed on four edges will buckle into visible waves within a season. A roll of acid-free framing tape costs about €5 and outlasts a hundred prints.

Glass or acrylic: a weight calculation, not a taste question

Float glass has a density of 2.5 g/cm³, so a 2 mm sheet weighs about 5 kg per square metre. Acrylic (PMMA) sits at 1.18 g/cm³ — roughly 2.4 kg per square metre in the same thickness. On a 50×70 cm frame that is 1.75 kg of glass against 0.83 kg of acrylic.

Use glass up to and including 50×70 cm or 24×36 in. It is flatter, clearer, harder to scratch, and cheap. Switch to acrylic above that, or anywhere the frame hangs over a bed, a cot, a stairwell or a desk chair. An A1 sheet of glass that falls is a genuine hazard; acrylic cracks instead of shattering.

Acrylic has two costs. It scratches if you look at it wrong, and it carries static that pulls dust onto the print. Clean it with a damp microfibre cloth and nothing else — ammonia-based glass sprays craze the surface permanently.

Anti-reflective glass: worth it in exactly one situation

Ordinary glass reflects about 4% of light at each surface, so roughly 8% total bounces back at you. Multi-coated museum glass drops that below 1%. The difference is real and immediately visible — and it typically doubles or triples the glazing cost.

Pay for it when the print is dark and hangs opposite a window. A black-ground Bauhaus composition facing daylight becomes a mirror behind standard glass. A pale botanical study on a side wall gains almost nothing. Standard glass blocks around 45% of UV; conservation glazing reaches 97-99%, which matters less here than it would elsewhere, because these are pigment inks on 250 gsm museum matte rather than dye prints. Direct midday sun will still fade anything eventually — move the frame, don't buy your way out of it.

Wood, aluminium or clip

Wood is the default and the right one for most walls. The rule that people break: profile width must scale with the print. A 15 mm pine moulding on an A1 looks like a mistake and, worse, physically bows over a metre span. Under 40×50 cm, a 15-20 mm profile is fine. At A1 or 24×36 in, use at least 25-30 mm.

Aluminium wins on large formats — an extruded 12 mm section stays dead straight at A1 where wood sags, and it suits typographic and technical work better than an ornate wooden lip. It is also the cheapest way to frame something big properly.

Clip frames (glass, hardboard, four spring clips, roughly €6) have exactly one good use: a dense grid of A4 or A3 prints in a kitchen or corridor, where the absence of a frame edge is the point. Everywhere else they fail — the print touches the glass, the corners chip, and the whole thing reads as temporary.

Framing without a frame

• Wooden magnetic hangers — two oak or walnut rails that clamp the top and bottom edge, €15-25. Ideal for 30×40 and 50×70 cm, and the fastest way to hang a vintage poster without committing.
• Washi tape — kozo mulberry-fibre tape, low tack, lifts off painted plaster cleanly. Tape only the reverse of the top corners. Over several years the adhesive can stain the paper, so treat it as a two-year solution.
• Magnets — N35 neodymium discs against a steel washer glued behind, or a pair of magnets gripping a nail head. Zero visible hardware, and the print can be swapped in ten seconds.

Hang so the centre of the image sits 145-152 cm from the floor. Above a sofa, put the bottom edge 20-25 cm above the top of the back cushion — higher and the picture floats, lower and heads collide with it.

How to flatten a rolled poster

Prints ship rolled in a rigid tube (small sizes travel flat — see shipping details), and paper keeps a memory of the curl for a day or two.

1. Unroll face up on a clean, flat surface in a normally humid room — 40-60% RH is ideal.
2. Lay a clean sheet of paper over the print. Never put books directly on the printed surface.
3. Weight it evenly with hardbacks spread across the whole area, not stacked in the middle.
4. Leave it 24-48 hours. Overnight is rarely enough for a heavier 250 gsm sheet.

For a faster fix, roll the print loosely backwards against the curl for 10-15 minutes, then weight it.

Never use heat. No iron, no hairdryer, no radiator. Heat softens the matte coating, can set a permanent shine where it touches, and drives moisture out of the sheet unevenly, which produces exactly the rippling you were trying to remove.

Five mistakes worth avoiding

1. A skinny frame on a big print. Anything over 50×70 cm needs a profile of 25 mm or more.
2. Print touching glass. Without a mat, add spacers. Trapped moisture can ferrotype the surface — the print bonds to the glass and cannot be separated without destroying it.
3. Mixing finishes with no rule. On a gallery wall, keep one moulding and one finish, and vary only mat width. Two finishes maximum, and only if one is clearly dominant.
4. Taping all four edges. Top hinges only.
5. Overspending on the frame. As a working limit, keep the frame under about 1.5× the price of the print — unless it is the one large piece over the sofa, where the maths stops applying.

What this should actually cost

An A3 protest print at €25 in a €20 ready-made 40×50 cm frame with the mat included: €45 on the wall, in one trip. The same print custom-framed with a bespoke mat and museum glass runs €90-150 at a European framer. The second option is better. It is not three times better.

Frames are never included with a VORAROSA order, and that is deliberate — glass ships badly, and every size in the catalogue already fits something on a shelf near you.

Written by The VORAROSA atelier — VORAROSA is an independent poster atelier. We design and curate 196 original art prints and produce each one on demand on 250gsm museum-quality matte paper.