Frames & Borders

Frames and borders: from boundary lines to ornament

Frames existed long before graphic design became a profession. Medieval scribes surrounded manuscript pages with decorated borders to separate sacred text from the ordinary page. At the same time, Renaissance engravers enclosed maps, portraits, and title pages within elaborate cartouches that announced where the image began and where everything else ended.

Print kept the habit and handed it a second job. On a banknote the border was a security device: those interlocking curves were cut on a geometric lathe, because the lathe could produce curves no engraver could imitate by hand. Certificates and stamps borrowed the look afterward, and the reading stuck. A thin rule suggested restraint, while a dense engraved frame suggested an official had signed off.

What changed is who cuts it. For most of this history the ornament was the expensive part of the object, ordered from a specialist with his own trade and his own guild, and the picture went inside whatever he delivered. Now the frame opens in a second and goes round anything.

Where frame ornament was copied from

• Architectural moulding. A carved profile flattened onto the page, with the light and shade of a real cross-section drawn in. Corners are mitered like joinery, which is why these break when a proportion is forced.
• Printer's ornament. Small units cast as metal type and assembled into a run. Built from repeats by necessity, so the pattern was designed to survive being cut at any length.
• Engine-turned lathework. The interlocking curves on banknotes and share certificates, produced by a geometric lathe. The machine origin is legible in how perfectly the loops close.
• Wreath and garland. Botanical material bent into a ring or a swag. Growth direction is the giveaway: stems in a real wreath run one way round, and a mirrored half betrays a shortcut.
• Cartouche. A shaped panel where the ornament and the opening are one object, scrolled or strapworked at the edges. These cannot be tiled, since the shape is the whole design.
• Rule and keyline. A drawn line with no ornament on it at all, sometimes doubled, sometimes with a corner incident. Stretches to any format without consequence.

Usage tips

Weigh the frame against what goes inside it. A dense engraved border around three words of light type turns the type into a caption for the ornament, which is rarely what you or your customer wanted. Heavy frame, heavy content; if the content is delicate, then find a lighter frame.

Another thing worth knowing: you should center things by eye rather than by the numbers. It works this way, because a block sitting on the exact mathematical middle reads low, as the eye treats the bottom edge as ground. Solution: lift it slightly and trust what you see over what the panel says. While you are there, decide who is performing. Ornament and interesting type fight each other, so if the frame is doing the decorative work, set the contents in something plain and let it get on with it.

What frames and borders are for

• Certificates, diplomas and award documents.
• Wedding invitations and event menus.
• Wine and spirits labels.
• Title pages and chapter openers.
• Restaurant menus and hand-painted style signage.
• Packaging seals, crests and quality marks.
• Quote cards and social templates.