Why the Border Around Your Art Matters More Than You Think
The Thing Most People Don’t Think About
When people bring a piece into the Graham Harrison Framing workshop, the conversation usually starts the same way: frame style, frame colour, maybe the finish. Occasionally glazing. Almost never the mount.
Which is a shame, because the mount that bordered layer sitting between the artwork and the frame quietly does more work than almost anything else in the whole equation.
Get it right and nobody really notices. They just sense that something about the piece feels considered, balanced, settled. Get it wrong and there’s a nagging feeling the art isn’t quite sitting comfortably… even if they can’t say exactly why.
What a Mount Actually Does
At its most basic, a mount creates visual breathing room. It separates the artwork from the frame and gives the eye somewhere to land before it moves into the piece itself.
But it does more than that.
A well-chosen mount controls how the artwork feels in terms of scale. A generous mount — deeper borders, more white space — can make even a modest-sized piece feel considered and important. A cramped mount, or no mount at all, can make a large piece feel boxed in and awkward.
It also protects the artwork. A proper conservation-grade mount keeps the art lifted away from the glazing, prevents condensation touching the surface, and — crucially — uses acid-free materials that won’t cause discolouration or deterioration over time. For anything you care about, that matters.
The Width Question
One of the most common decisions we help clients through in the studio is mount width.
There’s no universal answer, but there are principles worth knowing.
Bigger doesn’t always mean better an oversized mount on a small, delicate drawing can feel like it’s drowning the piece. But more often, the instinct to go smaller than needed is the one that causes problems. A mount that feels slightly generous in hand tends to look far better on the wall, where there’s more visual context around it.
There’s also the question of weighting. In traditional framing, the bottom border of a mount is often made slightly deeper than the top a subtle optical trick that stops the artwork looking like it’s sinking. It’s one of those details that you’d probably never consciously spot, but you’d notice something was slightly off without it.
Colour: More Interesting Than You’d Expect
Most people reach for white or off-white without much deliberation. And honestly, for a lot of work, that’s exactly right a clean neutral mount is often the best possible choice.
But colour mounts can do something really interesting when they’re used well.
A warm ivory mount changes how you read a watercolour. A deep charcoal border around a black-and-white photograph can give it a completely different sense of gravity. Even a subtle hint of cream rather than bright white can soften a piece considerably.
The key is that the mount colour should never compete with the artwork — it should serve it. The moment a mount draws your eye to itself rather than to the piece, it’s not doing its job.
Double Mounts and Lines
Sometimes a single mount isn’t quite enough. A double mount — where a thin inner layer of a different colour sits beneath the outer border — adds depth and can draw the eye in beautifully. Done well, it gives the impression of a frame within a frame.
Similarly, hand-drawn mount lines (sometimes called fillets or lines) are a traditional technique that adds a subtle decorative touch, particularly well-suited to prints, botanical illustrations, maps, and anything with a classical feel. They’re a small detail, but the right one in the right place can lift a piece considerably.
When No Mount Is the Right Answer
Not every framed piece needs a mount. Canvas work typically doesn’t. Some contemporary pieces are designed to live right against the frame edge, where a mount would interrupt the intention of the work. Float mounting where the artwork is raised from the backing so a sliver of space is visible around it is often the best approach for works on paper or photographic prints where you want to see the full edge of the piece.
These decisions are worth talking through properly, because there isn’t always one right answer. It depends on the artwork, the frame, and what you’re trying to achieve.
A Detail Worth Getting Right
Framing is full of small decisions that add up to something much larger than any one of them individually.
The mount is one of those decisions. It doesn’t get much attention in the way frames and glazing do, but in the studio, it’s often where the real work happens testing proportions, trying different tones, standing back and adjusting until the balance feels right.
If you’ve ever looked at a framed piece and thought it just works, without quite knowing why there’s a reasonable chance the mount had something to do with it.
At Graham Harrison Framing in London we’re always happy to talk through mounting options as part of any bespoke framing project. Whether you’re framing something precious, something contemporary, or something that’s been sitting in a drawer waiting for the right moment it’s worth doing properly.
And yes, that includes thinking carefully about the border.
