Gold Record Framing

Heart? The Spinners? Steve Miller Band? Bachman-Turner Overdrive?

Here for it.

Lets set the mood with this curated playlist of late 70s-80s hits of Seattle musicians…

We had the privilege to reframe this collection of gold records from late 70s-80s. This was exciting to us as framers and music lovers for several reasons.

As framers it was an awesome project because it allowed us to design a beautiful new display and give these pieces the honor they deserve.

It was also a trip for us to see how they were framed before. It was not good…

When first brought into our shop we realized they were showing their age with the framing. Upon opening up the pieces it became even more clear how haphazardly they were framed. The mat was totally sunbleached— the true color of the mat only revealed when we took off the record & plaques. It was honestly a miracle the printed album art details were still visible based on the amount of sun damage.

The next wild thing we saw was how the last framer went about mounting the records. Now, as a framer, you have to be creative with your mounting strategy- objects need to be mounted with whatever is going to be best for the piece. One would assume these records needed extra strong mounting to hold up the weight, but also be archival due to the nature of the piece (aka no permanent glues used as to not ruin the record). But this framer may have gotten too creative with it…

As music lovers this was a really special project because we actually had some of these albums back in the day— it was a fun trip down memory lane to remember. Especially because all of these musicians are from Seattle, and aren’t Kurt Cobain. And not to mention, the gold record is one of the highest awards given to musicians and here we are with 6 in hand— that is pretty cool.

As music lovers this was a really special project because we actually had some of these albums back in the day— it was a fun trip down memory lane to remember. And not to mention, the gold record is one of the highest awards given to musicians and here we are with 6 in hand— that is pretty cool.

Now onto the design! The customer wanted to contemporize his collection from the dated framing display they lived in for probably for over 30 years. We went with float mounting the records over a metallic waffle textured mat, and then pedestal mounting the album art & plaques at the bottom. The pieces were then housed in a contemporary slanted Roma frame, with reflection control glass so that they could be visible without the glare of display lights.

Check out how the came out::

Last step: Install! We went to their Seattle private residence to put the newly reframed records back into their homes.

As you can see, the end result was stunning. ( And this is also a great example of using reflection control glass to not impede visibility due to art lights. ) So happy to be involved with this project!