Moulding Displays

Moglet · Post by **Moglet** » Tue 06 May, 2008 11:26 pm

Greetings people!

I'm just about to revamp my moulding chevron display. Currently, I group my chevrons as follows:

- Colour group first (limes, blacks, woods, metallics, alu).

- Profile shape / size within colour groups.

I'm curous about how other members group their moulding chevrons. In particular, is it better to go with colour family as the main grouping criterion, or would profile family/size be better/easier for customers?

Roboframer · Post by **Roboframer** » Tue 06 May, 2008 11:46 pm

Look at the Arqadia catalogue - so easy to find your way around.

Plainwoods, (but finished now) woodtones, colour tones, black, silver,gold, ornate - smaller going to larger in each section.

That's pretty much how my display goes - plus 'ranges' - again see Arqadia catalogue - Larson Juhl - from widest down to mount slips - don't go mixing those up with the rest.

osgood · Post by **osgood** » Tue 06 May, 2008 11:47 pm

Áine,
These are my groups below. I try to keep each group arranged from darkest to lightest, irrespective of size, but I'm not always successful.

Some groups occupy several rows. The photo below is quite old and the order of things is much improved now.

Since arranging this way it makes locating mouldings for art much quicker.

Black
White
Gold
Silver
Gold ornate
Silver ornate
Formal - wood
Country Classics - wood
Rustic - wood
Furniture Finish - wood
Colours
Washes
Decorator
Slips

Moglet · Post by **Moglet** » Wed 07 May, 2008 12:28 am

Thanks for feedback, peeps!

Why the largest at the top? I do the opposite, and I'm curious about the reasoning behind your choices in this respect.

(Edit: changed the above from"largest at the bottom".)

osgood · Post by **osgood** » Wed 07 May, 2008 12:32 am

I do darkest at the top as a general rule! The corners in the photo are from an arrangement years ago and were a mess at that time!
Size is irrelevant!

Moglet · Post by **Moglet** » Wed 07 May, 2008 12:49 am

Apologies, Ormond! I'm slicing between the forum and a pernickety update on my pricing system, so my concentration wasn't at it's fullest.

Why do you choose to put the darker samples at the top?

osgood · Post by **osgood** » Wed 07 May, 2008 2:23 am

Áine,
They need to be arranged in some sort of order and for me it's logical to go from darkest to lightest because the frame selection process includes 'darkness' and 'lightness' along with style and colour.

Most of the time it is easier for me to locate frames that will work with the art using this method.

For example if someone brings in a wedding photo that includes an old post and rail fence and or old wooden farm building in a dilapidated state, the first place to look is in the 'rustic' section. (This section includes wooden mouldings with scars, fake worm holes, etc.)

Next I look for a wood colour that is in harmony with the colours in the photo and darkness also is considered. Because the corners are arranged in order of darkness, I will be looking either in the top or bottom or middle of that section.

My matboard corner samples are also arranged in order of the divisions of the colour wheel, then in order of darkness in each of those divisions.

I attended a class about 17 years ago where this principle was taught and I am very glad I implemented it. Within a couple of weeks it proved to be a huge advantage. It helped me sell many mat colours that I had never sold or noticed before!

ross · Post by **ross** » Wed 07 May, 2008 12:09 pm

We generally have our samples arranged in groups:

. black/white
. distressed timbers
. colours
. light timbers
. dark timbers
. gold and silver - plain
. gold and silver - decorative
. slips and stretcher bars
. aluminium (not many)
. synthetic (even less)

I guess we would have the larger ones towards the top, but not fussed by that - as our display boards go below desk level, generally try and display what we consider the better selling mouldings at or above eye level and relegate the others towards the bottom on the display area, and from there they go to the bin!

Interested in Ormond's comment about finding colours not used before - how many display a full set of matt-board corner samples? We weed out quite a few of the samples when new supplies are received

Ross

Moglet · Post by **Moglet** » Wed 07 May, 2008 12:34 pm

Thanks for that, Ross.

With regard to mountboard chevrons, I don't display any. I'm fairly good at keeping colours in my head, so I tend to work initially from memory, then swatch cards. The swatch cards have boards grouped in colour families, which are great for homing in on the board with the right colour nuances, but I file my chevrons in number order, as I find it much quicker to search for them by number. With my most commonly used boards, I can easily remember the rough position in the chevron caddy, and this also speeds up searches.

Sometimes, I remember mount colours by name rather than reference number, so I have set up a spreadsheet for each board range I use, and sort it in name order for quick cross-reference. I also include information on each type of board (WC, BC, Conservation) in the sheet, so it's handy to check whether the chosen colour is the right grade for the job I am working on.

Mary Case GCF · Post by **Mary Case GCF** » Wed 07 May, 2008 2:52 pm

we recently began offer the whole Bainbridge Alphamat, alpharag range and special effect boards, and have noticed a distinct increase in new colours being used,

we also find it is a lot easier to keep them in the caddy in the same order as they are in the specifier, as they are grouped by colour wheel association.

as for the moulding, we work Dark Browns - golds- light/orangey woods - whites - silvers - blacks - colours,

Bill Henry · Post by **Bill Henry** » Wed 07 May, 2008 3:50 pm

I do my pretty much the same as Ormond and Ross – grouped by finishes. I don’t pay too much attention to the width or depth of the moulding in our display, although I try to keep the widest (i.e. most expensive) at eye level where they are more likely to be chosen.

Like the display shown, our corners are held on with Velcro. We encourage our customers to play “hands on” and rip whatever mouldings they fancy off the wall themselves. This gives us a pretty good idea of what they are thinking so we are more likely to be able to help. It seems to speed the selection process up greatly.

Most of our distributors offer sets of the same finish with different profiles. I try to keep those similarly finished sets together. It just seems to look better to me.

We carry about 110 profiles of metal aluminum corners. They are segregated from the wood. The metals are grouped first by profile, then by finish – sliver, gold, black, other anodized, and painted finishes. There is no particular reason for this except they are easier for me to find.

deejay · Post by **deejay** » Wed 07 May, 2008 4:46 pm

You are an organised lot! My chevrons start out all in order, and after about a week, they are all over the place. Usuallly they stay like that for the next few months til I have another tidying storm. I'm always ferreting about looking for the moulding I want to show off.

Mary Case GCF · Post by **Mary Case GCF** » Wed 07 May, 2008 5:12 pm

deejay wrote:You are an organised lot! My chevrons start out all in order, and after about a week, they are all over the place. Usuallly they stay like that for the next few months til I have another tidying storm. I'm always ferreting about looking for the moulding I want to show off.

I should have said in my post that the way we have the moulding chevrons displayed is in the ideal world and after a big tidy up(had one yesterday so still feeling smug about my lovely display). Unfortunately customers come along and wreck it all. We have managed to devise a way that the mountboard chevrons stay in place - a thick black line diagonally along one side soon sorts out misplaced samples. Like Aine I work from the swatch specifier now, and find that to be the quickest way to find just the right mount for a customer, unless I have already decided which one it should be from looking at the picture. Offering the whole Alphamat Artcare range has increased the number of colours being used on a regular basis - not just the whites and creams

The Crofter · Post by **The Crofter** » Wed 07 May, 2008 6:13 pm

I use a swatch/colour chart to help with the initial choice but sometimes the customer rejects the colour when they see the chevron. There sems to be a subtle shift when switching from a very small sample to a large area.

Moglet · Post by **Moglet** » Wed 07 May, 2008 6:20 pm

Nothing subtle about the shift at all, Pat!

osgood · Post by **osgood** » Wed 07 May, 2008 8:17 pm

Interesting that some of you work from mat swatches. Personally I couldn't cope with that because I find small quantities of colour are too difficult to work with. As some have said there can also be a colour difference that can be deceiving
Like Mary, I have the entire range of Alphamat and Alpharag corner samples in my racks, sorted in colour wheel groups and in order from lightest to darkest left to right.

Ross,
I don't weed out any colours, because it would limit my ability to show a customer some colours which may well be the best colours for their art!

Moglet · Post by **Moglet** » Wed 07 May, 2008 8:49 pm

osgood wrote: I couldn't cope with that because I find small quantities of colour are too difficult to work with.

Clarification: I use the colour swatches to guide me to potentially suitable colours: I design using the actual chevrons. (Sorry. Could have explained myself better in my previous post, but I was working on the assumption that all framers would naturally use the sample chevrons against the artwork itself!)

kev@frames · Post by **kev@frames** » Wed 07 May, 2008 8:53 pm

Ours go something like this:

whites and plain woods are popular down this way

.

We group all the "starting price" mouldings down one end together, within easy reach, anything that is an occasional seller goes up at the top (hard to reach) and the "best sellers" or ones we wish to promote seem to go best at just above eye-level. Really expensive stuff and big profiles are grouped together.

Then they are loosely grouped in ranges and themes.

We used to group by price. Then following suggestions on this forum we started grouping into "ranges" and some in "colours" and that works well.

Mount chevrons from Colourmount and Arquadia are on the counter, with all "key" (always in stock) colours at the front and marked with a red spot for easy identification from the counter side.
We try and keep these out of reach of the customers

Moglet · Post by **Moglet** » Wed 07 May, 2008 9:15 pm

A real "Wall of Frame", Kev!

An attractive and impressive display!

Thanks for posting the pics, people! They're really helpful, as are the different groupings. I'm really glad I asked for your help on this, as I think my new displays will be more effective for all your suggestions.

I've been looking at my available space, and there's a goodly amount of unproductive wall space off to the side of my counter, and I think it would be a good idea to devote it to moulding samples.

It's a partition wall, and I was thinking of using fabric-covered MDF fixed to battens on the wall. Is that the best way to tackle the job, or are there better ways? Also, would 6mm MDF be strong enough (with a goodly number of battens behind it), as I'm concerned about weight. Any suggestions and tips appreciated. (Just wish I could epoxy some carpet to the wall and have done with!

)

Roboframer · Post by **Roboframer** » Wed 07 May, 2008 9:34 pm

Carpet's what we use - go for the cheap stuff - nylon. Check your fire regs.