I came in on a Saturday afternoon to have a poster framed. I'd been meaning to frame this poster for almost a year, and it had been leaning flat up against the wall for about that long, which gave it a slight bend over time on the bottom edge. I rolled it up in a sheet of paper, and brought it to the framing store.
The shop was a little busy, but when it was my turn to be helped, I unrolled my poster, and the nice lady used some weights to hold down the corners so we could look at it. That's when the criticisms started: "This looks like a nice poster; why did you roll it up?" "This is printed with good ink coverage, but this edge is all bent; what were you thinking?" I acknowledged her comments, but assured her it was not a precious piece of artwork, and we moved on to discuss the frame options; I just wanted a simple black frame.
As the woman was picking out a few options, I noticed that because of the way the poster had been stored, there was a little dust accumulation near the top, so I used my scarf to lightly wipe the dust away. From across the room, another employee said: "Hey, don't wipe it; you'll ruin the ink."
In the end, I escaped without further critique, and the shopkeeper took my mobile number so she could text me when the poster was ready. Sure enough, I got a text message a few days later, and picked it up the following weekend. The work was perfect, and the price was reasonable (about 90 Euro for a medium-sized custom frame).
I'll probably come back because this shop is convenient to my house and they did such a nice job. I'll just keep in mind that some amount of emotional abuse is part of the experience. read more