Best Way to Display Prints for Sale?

[Chainsaw_Willie]

If you were going to display prints in a coffee shop or an art gallery and wanted to maximize your chance of selling some of them, what's the best way to do it?

Do larger or smaller prints sell better (size suggestions)? Framed? If so, what style, or just go bare mounted to foamcore so people can pick out their own frames?

Thanks for any suggestions.

[time2clmb]

Show what you want to sell. Why display an unfinished work? It's hard for people to visualize what a print is going to look like from looking at it on the computer so help them by showing them. Frame styles are totally subjective so just pick one that doesn't take away from the work. As for what's going to sell better that totally depends on your market. If it's all tourists that are travelling then smaller prints will be easier to transport etc..

[Doc Green]

I agree with time2climb that displaying "unfinished" work is not really worth it. You should try and take it to the next level and offer a polished product.

In those regards, think about your overhead. The cost of frames, or framing, can make the cost of the final product prohibitive to someone who's in love with the image.

I've certainly printed and mounted to just foam core, and then sealed the image with a gloss uv spray, which helped keep my prices down. The downside to all that? It didn't look as polished, and it wasn't as durable.

Right now I'm looking at mounting my prints to wood panels that have been sealed in gesso and acrylic, and then using the same uv spray to help reserve the image itself.

It's taken me a couple of years to get any good at these techniques but I think the final result is worth it as it's helped me to create some more unique art-objects.


In terms of framing, or framing materials, think in terms of overhead, final cost, and how the frame can impact the perceived narrative of the work.

I'd say that that is the most important consideration here. How does your framing technique, the mechanism of display, support the narrative being presented and increase the response from the viewer?


I definitely struggle with these questions. When I last did a big show with the prints-sealed-in-acrylic on foamcore, I did each photo at 4x6 with my whole sale cost being $5 each. I then sold out all my pieces, over a 3 month period, with each piece selling for $20.

Since then I've had mixed luck commercially with mounting to foamcore, as the final display. I think wood is the way to go now because it increases the durrablity of the piece and it also increases the perceived value of the work.

That's a bit of a ramble. Hope it helps!