When selling prints of your artwork, how you present the piece can make a difference.

Traditional matting is a popular choice for a reason. It gives a print a finished look, creates breathing room around the artwork, and can help customers picture the piece framed in their home. Its clean, classic presentation works beautifully across many different styles of art.

Images with Printed Borders give artists another way to approach that presentation.

Instead of adding a separate mat, your artwork and surrounding border are printed together as one complete piece on acid-free matboard. This allows the space around your artwork to become part of the creative presentation itself.

Rather than being limited to a traditional solid mat, you can incorporate colors, patterns, textures, or design elements that complement your work and feel like a natural extension of your artistic style.

Why Matboard?

Unlike a traditional paper print, matboard provides a thicker, more rigid surface that gives the finished piece structure and a substantial feel when handled or displayed.

Because your artwork is printed directly onto the matboard, there's no separate print that needs to be mounted to a backing board to create that structure.

Unlike specialty art or photo papers, which can offer their own unique textures and finishes, matboard provides a more substantial, ready-to-present format. Its advantage is the combination of print, structure, and presentation in one finished piece — giving artists an easy way to create prints that feel polished and ready to sell, display, or frame.

Make the Border Part of the Creative Process

A Printed Border doesn't have to look like a traditional mat.

You can keep things simple with a solid color that complements your artwork, choose from an available border template, or create a completely custom border in your own artistic style.

Pull a color from your painting. Continue a pattern or texture. Repeat a flower or motif found in the original piece. Add your signature. Or create a border treatment that becomes recognizable across an entire collection of your prints.

A More Finished Experience for Your Customer

Presentation isn't only important to the artist.

When someone purchases a print for their home or as a gift, they may not want the additional step of figuring out how to mat and present it themselves.

With a Printed Border, you've already made some of those creative decisions for them.

Instead of purchasing a loose reproduction, your customer receives a more substantial piece with a presentation intentionally chosen by the artist. They can enjoy it as you've designed it or add a frame to complete the look in their own space.

Printed Border or Traditional Mat?

A traditional mat is a separate piece of matboard placed around your print, which means it can be removed or changed later.

With an Image with Printed Border, your artwork and border are printed together directly on the same piece of acid-free matboard. That gives you the opportunity to treat the space around your artwork as part of the finished design.

For artists looking for a creative and affordable way to approach their prints, that opens up a lot of possibilities.

Take Your Art Beyond the Edge

How you present your work is another opportunity to make it feel like your own. Whether you choose a classic mat, a simple printed border, or a custom design that carries elements of your artwork beyond the image, the right presentation can help bring the entire piece together.

Printed Borders give you the freedom to experiment with that space and create something that feels intentional from edge to edge.

Your artwork sets the story. Let the presentation help you finish it.