The psychology of picture frames on websites

[pauland]

I'm intrigued by how popular picture frames seem to be on TG.

A number of years ago I worked on a website for a client who owned a designer boutique shop (two shops, in fact) and naturally wanted to showcase their products online. They weren't a 'normal' high street store, they had a style probably best described as Gothic modern.

They already had a website and I was taking it over. They framed all of the products in a picture frame.

One of the big downsides for me when I saw this, was that the picture frame dominated the product. The product image was smaller and while the frame was compatible with the style of the shop, I thought it made it harder for the buyers to view the product. Their product photographer would add the frames to the product images. When viewed at a larger size, the frames just became bigger thicker versions - just as dominant.

After discussing this with the client, I took the frames out, just adding a small drop-shadow to the images to pop them off the background. The client told me that there had been a very positive response to the website revamp (though I didn't just remove the frames).

For me, digitally added frames around an image are a distraction and distort my view of the image.

When we look at a frame we make some assumptions from the proportions of it, about the physical size. So if I see a frame I might think it looks two inches wide, so then whatever is inside is unwittingly seen as being of a particular size - which may detract from the image. It's not good to look at a landscape image sitting in a frame that makes it look about six inches wide.

Then there's a question of style. I may not think a frame style suits the subject. It may be a modern painting framed in a fancy frame full of embellishments. I may see the content and frame as being incongruous. I may just hate the frame.

I suppose there's one thing worse than having an ugly frame around an image, - it's having a beautiful frame around an image. Just what an artist doesn't want to hear: "What a beautiful frame."

Don't get me wrong, I actually like frames. I just don't like digital framing pretending to be physical frames.

If the image is of a real artwork, with frame, then good. I can relate to the artwork, the size will be right and the physical frame proportions are correct for the artwork. We still take our chances on the frame being sympathetic to the art, but that's fine - the frame is now essentially part of the art.

So why do we see digitally added frames on websites? They can clash with the product, mislead the viewer about the size of what they are seeing, reduce the size of the image we want to see and worse of all take away our attention from the main subject.

At the moment, the only reason I can see for using digital frames that mimic a real frame is for a kitsch effect.

Tell me why adding frames to artwork digitally is a good thing!