How I hoped this worked when I heard about it: Take photo of poster next to a credit card, it extrapolates the size based on the card, and automatically configures the frame dimensions to fit, so I don't have to measure anything.
Nice website and idea. The prices seem reasonable although not a great steal once you add shipping. But the convenience of not finding a store and talking to a person is pretty nice. Although I haven't gotten anything custom framed in a long time so I could be mistaken and it's a better deal than I realize.
We're making a beautiful, high-end frame to order and delivering it within a week. Of course there are cheaper alternatives/materials, but you can easily tell the difference and oftentimes cheap frames will literally fall apart within a few years.
We design and source our own profiles (sustainably-harvested wood) and then make each frame to order in NY using similar tools/materials to any high-end custom frame shop. We have added a few touches to make it easy to open up the frame and mount your artwork inside when it arrives.
We'll soon be able to print and frame your photos - and thinking about making them available (opt-in of course) for other people to purchase. Would love to know if that interests you (or anyone else here). Also feel free to sign up for the newsletter on the site (the bottom button in the footer at www.levleframes.com) to stay posted. And hanks for sharing that experience!
So it's traditionally been a very high-touch service with the need for retail overhead. Most frame shops carry way too many supplies/options, and outsource a portion of the work (which accounts for the delay). They are also geographically limited in terms of the business they can do, and get most of it on the weekends when people have time to stop by. So there's a lot of margin in the price above the cost of the components. Having said that, custom framers can do amazing things, and the word "racket" was used mainly for the headlines. The fit for Levle is creating a super high-quality and great looking frame for that $20-$60 print or poster that doesn't need the expertise of a master framer.
So framing is mostly subjective, but there a fair amount of science and best practice can be applied. Based on the size of the artwork, there are some "golden ratios" around how thick the mat and the frame should be. The Best Bet button employs a simple algorithm that will give you the recommended configuration. More room to optimize this, but main goal was to have one button that would get you to something good looking if you are not an experienced framer.
I have an upsell for you to consider. However, a small word of caution regarding artists - they are like herding cats and as the legendary Paul Graham discovered, quite hard to base a start up around! However...
The upsell is for the artist's market. They need to get their pride and joy off to galleries and shows. So even if they are driving the stuff to the gallery themselves, it still needs to be packed and made transportable.
The solution - 'art bags'. These are tailored to the frame with a few inches to spare and are made of that bubble-wrap that has mylar film backing in it - heat welded together, rip-proof and good for shifting framed artwork around without it getting damaged. A simple flap - add velcro if you must - closes the bag. Prominent on the front is an enclosure to add a picture of the picture with the expected fragile notice, artist's name, name of the piece, phone number etc.
Obviously such bags can be used for shipping the frames so you can sell on your packaging :-)
There is an un-developed market for this in the UK, as in a cottage industry. As a standalone business it is a hard sell, however, as part of a framing business it could work out quite nicely. Plus the start up costs for the materials and welding device are not great. Trade building supplies places sell the mylar film bubble wrap stuff so it is not hard to get.
Thanks for the feedback! Price-wise, there is almost no way a wooden frame of that size with a framers-grade acrylic could ever get down to that size. Cost of the wood alone is ~$0.30 per linear inch.
For me, I think it's wonderful that you can get a great print or poster for $40. That problem has been solved. But you can tell a cheap frame from a quality one every time.
Maybe what I need to overcome my cheapness is a new perspective. From my perspective, the frame is utilitarian. It's just there to hold the goods, which are what is mounted. I don't want it to look shitty, any more than I want my door knob to look shitty, but it amounts to basically the same thing. It feels "off" to pay more or as much for a frame as I do for what goes in it.
And, yet, unlike a doorknob, sometimes you want a frame to have a custom size.
That just doesn't sit right. It is like if you had to pay significantly more for a belt than for the pants they are holding up.
I get sticker shock every time I go to buy a nice poster, print, or art piece at what seems like a very reasonable price and then see the cost triple or quadruple when I add the frame and shipping.
It is like having on a dapper outfit, stepping out but then your outdoor jacket looks bad. A jacket compliments an outfit, like how a frame compliments art.
I came to post almost exactly the same thing as the OP - 40 bucks was the anchor and yet the first click lead me to ... No pricing and the second to over 60 bucks.
You anchored at 40 - and surely the frame is less than the artwork.
Can I suggest a bottom "entry level" solution - it might not work but have cheap(ish) standard sized frames and adjust the inner piece of off white card that goes inside.
I have two kids and would love to swap their work in and out on a weekly basis - different sized card to cover things up seems great.
So why does it have to be wood? Could you perhaps offer an OPTION to instead use plastic or metal or whatever's in the cheaper frames they sell at Target/Walmart, only custom-sized?
Maybe YOU "can tell a cheap frame from a quality one every time" but I can't. I've never chosen to develop that expertise. Frames all kind of look the same to me, except that a few styles of wooden ones look needlessly gaudy/ornate/expensive. To me, the purpose of the frame is to FRAME - it's not art, just a square one puts AROUND art to protect and separate it. I care what color that square is and what size it is, but what MATERIAL it's made of...not so much.
Exactly. The two products you mention are similar also in the fact that a traditional e-commerce paradigm (thumbnails and drop downs) don't quite map to the way you want to preview and select them. So much room for Levle to grow and become more intuitive/helpful to getting the right frame for your art up on the wall.
You nailed the alternatives on the head: buy cheap plastic or MDF frames that look crappy and are hard to find in the right size, or spend $$$ at the custom frame shop for a beautiful, high-quality frame. I wanted to deliver the same product as the custom frame shop, but in a much more convenient way and at ~half the cost. Could expand into other price point later, but right now trying to hit that sweet spot in the middle where there is a real pain point.
