It has been a busy few months in the workshop and behind the scenes on the website. We have added more new features this autumn than in any year we can remember, so it seemed a good moment to step back and show you everything easyframe.co.uk can do, old favourites and new arrivals together.
If you only have a minute, here are the highlights:
- 3D and AR view. Turn your frame round on screen, look at the back, and see it on your own wall at its real size.
- Shaped mounts. 25 aperture shapes, from arches and hearts to hexagons and T-shirts.
- Decorative corners. 9 corner styles for rectangular mounts, including four made for double mounts.
- The EasyFrame app for iPhone. Your account, basket and orders in your pocket.
- New multi-photo tools. A reworked Layout Designer and dozens of new ready-made layouts.
- Your album in the vinyl frame designer. Search for a record and see its real cover in the preview.
See your frame in 3D, and on your own wall
Choosing a frame from a flat picture has always involved some guesswork. How deep is it? How far back does the picture sit? Will it look too big over the fireplace? The new 3D and AR button is there to answer those questions before you order.
Once you have chosen a frame, press 3D and AR beside the other views and the preview becomes a model of your frame, built from your own size, moulding, mount and picture. Change any of them and the model changes with you.
- Turn it round. Drag with a mouse or a finger to see the frame from any angle, sides and back included.
- See the real moulding. Where we hold a profile drawing for a frame, the model takes its shape from it, so a scooped or stepped moulding looks scooped or stepped.
- Look at the back. See the backing board and the tabs that hold it, the stretcher bars of a canvas, or the spacer inside a box frame.
- Put it on your wall. On an iPhone, iPad or Android phone, tap View on your wall and the frame appears in your room through the camera, at the size it will arrive.
The 3D view shows each kind of frame the way it really goes together: the shadow gap round a canvas in a floater frame, the canvas set in from behind in a canvas picture frame, the deep spacer of a box frame, float or traditional fitting in a St Ives frame, and the slim edge of an inset frame.
New for canvas prints: our canvas print designer now opens straight on the 3D view. You can see your photo wrapped round the edges (or plain white or black sides, if you prefer), and turn the canvas over to see the stretcher bars, the folded corners and the staples, just as it will arrive.
Shaped mounts: 25 aperture shapes
For years our mount designer offered two openings, the rectangle and the oval. Now there are 25. In the Mount step of the frame designer, tick More options and choose Aperture Shape to open a picture menu of every shape.
- Arches and curved tops for portraits and wedding photos.
- Ovals, classic or notched.
- Geometric shapes such as hexagon, octagon, diamond and three concave styles, for modern prints and graphic art.
- Fans, hearts and stars for something a little more playful.
- T-shirt, vest and V-neck for team photos and first kits.
Every shape works as a double mount too, with the inner colour showing as an even border all the way round, curves and slopes included.
Fancy corners
Prefer a rectangle? The corners are where you can add some character. Choose a shape of Rectangle and a new Corners menu appears:
- Shaped corners: Cut, Stepped, Stepped Cut, Cut & Notch and Rounded Notch, lovely on a single mount.
- Double mount corners: Stepped Offset, Cut & Step, Stepped Out and Double Line Tab, where the inner mount shows through in a pattern at each corner.
Every shape and corner is cut on our computer-controlled mount cutter from the same outline you see in the preview, with the same clean bevelled edge as our standard mounts. There is more detail in our post on shaped mounts and decorative corners.
The EasyFrame app for iPhone
The latest version of our app is now on the App Store. It uses the same account, basket and order history as the website, built for your phone, so you can start a design on the sofa and finish it at your desk, or the other way round.
- Design on the go. Picture frames, frame and mount, print and frame and multi-photo frames, with a live preview.
- Straight from your camera roll. Upload a photo from your phone and we print and frame it.
- Your designs and pictures, saved. Keep designs and uploaded photos in your account and come back to them later.
- Sign in your way. Use Sign in with Apple or an emailed login link, so there is no password to remember.
- Track your orders. See where each order has got to and download your invoices.
- Same prices, same workshop. Everything you order in the app is made here in Bedford, at the same price as on the website.
And if you email yourself a design from the website, tapping the link on your iPhone opens it straight in the app.
Multi-photo frames, made easier
Collage and multi-aperture frames have had plenty of attention too.
- A reworked Layout Designer. In the Layout Designer you can drop your openings roughly where you want them and let Arrange tidy them up without shuffling them round. Openings snap into line as you drag, and you can select several at once to align or space them evenly. There is a short video tour on the page.
- More ready-made layouts. Our pre-designed multi mounts now include layouts for 6x6, 8x8 and 12x8 photos and A5 and A4 prints, landscape versions of popular sizes, and a title box version of each for a name or date.
- Up to 64 photos. The multi aperture designer still handles anything from two openings to sixty-four, and our multi print and frame service will print your photos into them for you.
See your own album in a vinyl record frame
Framing a favourite record is one of the nicest things we make, but until now the designer could only show a placeholder sleeve, so you had to imagine how your mount colour would sit next to your album’s artwork. Not any more.
Our upgraded vinyl record frame designer has a new See your album in the frame box under the preview:
- Search for your album. Type the artist or the album title and press Find cover.
- Pick the right one. Matching albums come back as covers, so you can choose the release you own.
- See it in the frame. One click and the cover appears in the sleeve opening of the preview, next to the record.
- Try it with everything. Change the mount colour, the frame or the layout and the cover stays in place, so you can see which combination suits the artwork. Changed your mind? Press Remove.
The cover is there to help you choose: it is shown in the preview only, and we don’t print or supply it. Your own record and sleeve go into the frame when it arrives. Need a hand with that part? Our how-to guide on fitting a vinyl record frame shows you how.
Smaller changes you might notice
- Bigger photos upload happily. Very large images straight from modern phones and cameras now upload to print and frame without trouble, and PDFs of any page size are accepted.
- Easier checkout. If the postcode finder cannot find your address, you can now type it in by hand.
- Add to an order you have just placed. Forgotten something? If you are signed in and your earlier order has not gone into production yet, checkout will offer to combine your new items with it, so it all arrives together and you only pay the difference.
- A fresh look for our guides and blog. Our how-to guides have a new layout with videos for measuring, ordering and fitting each type of frame, and the help pop-ups in the designers have been rewritten.
Everything else we do
New features are fun, but they sit on top of what we have always done: make every frame to measure, by hand, in our Bedford workshop.
- Made-to-measure frames and mounts. Over 900 frame styles and 60+ acid-free mount colours, made to any size in millimetres or inches. Start here.
- Room View. Try your design on a wall, or upload a photo of your own room.
- Print and frame. Upload a photo, poster or artwork and we print and frame it in one order.
- Canvas prints and canvas frames. Canvas prints, plus floater, inset, St Ives and canvas picture frames for paintings you already have.
- Box, medal and vinyl frames. Deep box frames for shirts and keepsakes, medal frames and record and CD frames.
- Mounts on their own. Custom mounts in any size and colour, now with all the new shapes and corners.
- Glazing to suit. 2mm clear acrylic as standard, with UV100, anti-reflective and ArtGlass museum acrylic upgrades.
- Quick delivery. Made in 1 to 3 working days and delivered across the UK, free on orders over £50, or collect from our Kempston workshop.
Tell us what you think
Many of these changes started as questions and suggestions from customers, so please keep them coming. If something does not look or work the way you expect, or there is a feature you would love to see next, get in touch.
The frames pictured in this post were made with the 3D view and the mount designer, using sample pictures.