How to frame a magazine cover

A magazine sat on a coffee table for a month. Then it went in a drawer. Now you want it on a wall. Good instinct. We frame a lot of these.

But magazines fight back a little. The paper is cheap. The sizes are all over the place. And you have one big decision to make first.

First, decide what you are framing

There are two jobs here. They look similar. They are not.

Job one is framing the whole magazine. The issue stays intact, still bound, cover facing out.

Job two is framing the cover alone. You cut it off. You mount it flat. The rest goes in the recycling.

Here is the part people wish we would not say. Cut the cover off a collectible issue and the value drops to near zero. A complete 1967 issue and a loose cover from it are two different objects to a collector.

So ask one question. Would anyone pay money for this issue? If you are not sure, keep it whole. You can always cut it later. You can never uncut it.

Measure the actual issue

This is where most projects go wrong. Someone looks up the trim size online. They order a frame. It does not fit.

Get a ruler. Measure the issue in your hands. Not a photo.

Measure the trim. Trim is the paper itself, edge to edge. Do not measure the mylar sleeve. Do not measure the backing board. Both run bigger than the magazine on purpose, often by a quarter inch.

Take the issue out of the bag first. Lay it flat. Measure height along the spine. Measure width across the cover. Round to the closest eighth of an inch.

Then measure the thickness. Most people skip this one. It is the step that bites.

Some real sizes, and why you should not trust them

Here are numbers from titles we see often. Treat them as a warning, not a spec.

Time runs about 8 x 10.5 inches. National Geographic is roughly 6.75 x 10.125 inches. Sports Illustrated sits near 8 x 10.75 inches. Vintage Life was much bigger, about 10.5 x 14 inches.

Rolling Stone used a tabloid format for years, around 10 x 12.75 inches. The earliest issues were newsprint and bigger still.

Now the catch. These sizes drifted over the decades. Paper got expensive and titles shrank. The same magazine changed size more than once. A 1972 issue and a 2019 issue of one title can sit inches apart.

Framing the whole issue

A magazine has thickness. A thin one might be an eighth of an inch. A fat September fashion issue can pass half an inch.

That thickness has to go somewhere. A standard flat frame has a shallow rabbet. The rabbet is the lip inside the frame. Cram a thick magazine in there and the back bows out.

Two ways to solve it. A shadow box gives you real depth. Or a frame with enough rabbet depth to swallow the magazine, cover facing out.

The bagged and boarded option

Some collectors go further. They frame the issue still in its mylar sleeve, backing board and all.

It sounds odd. It works. Nothing touches the paper but the mylar it already lives in. The whole package is reversible, so grading options stay open.

The cost is depth. A bag and board add maybe an eighth of an inch. So a half inch issue becomes closer to five eighths. Measure the bagged package, not the bare magazine. You will want a shadow box for this one.

Framing the cover alone

Fine for a common issue you just like. If it is a stack-of-fifty kind of magazine, cut away.

Frame it flat with a mat. Cut close and cut straight. A metal ruler and a fresh blade beat scissors every time.

The paper problem

Magazine paper is acidic. It yellows. That is chemistry doing slow work.

Acid free backing helps. UV acrylic helps more. Together they slow it down a lot. But they do not stop it forever, and any shop that says otherwise is selling something.

Newsprint is worse. Much worse. Old Rolling Stone issues and newspapers brown fast, sometimes in a few years. Keep the frame off walls that get direct sun. That one choice buys you the most time.

Two things we will not do

We will not laminate a magazine. Lamination is permanent. It bonds plastic to paper with heat and glue. There is no going back.

We will not dry mount a collectible. Dry mounting glues the piece to a board. Same problem. It is a one way door.

For a throwaway issue you love? Different story.

Humidity and the air gap

This one catches people years later. Magazine ink never cures the way fine art ink does.

Press that ink flat against acrylic and leave it. Add a humid summer. The ink softens and grabs the plastic. Pull the frame apart later and you get a ghost of the cover. The cover is ruined. We have seen it more than once.

The fix is an air gap. A mat does this. It sits between the cover and the acrylic and holds them apart. Spacers do the same job if you want no mat at all.

Two inches of mat around a cover looks calm. A quarter inch looks cramped.

Two covers or four

One cover is a memory. Four covers is a story.

We cut mats with multiple openings. Two side by side works well. Four in a grid works well. We would skip three, because an odd count leaves a grid lopsided.

The gap between openings matters. Keep it the same all the way across. An eighth of an inch of drift reads as sloppy.

We run a half inch between openings, then a wider border outside. The group reads as one piece that way.

What we build for these

Everything is made to order in our New Jersey workshop. Solid pine, sized to fit your piece. Our magazine frames are a good place to start.

Questions we hear a lot

Can you frame a magazine without cutting it?

Yes, and we prefer it. The issue goes in whole, cover facing out. You need depth for the thickness, so a shadow box or a deep rabbet frame does the job.

Will UV acrylic stop my cover from yellowing?

It slows it down. It does not stop it. The acid was in the paper the day it printed. UV acrylic and acid free backing buy you years, not forever.

My magazine is an odd size. Is that a problem?

No. Our frames are made to order and sized to fit your piece. Older covers are normal work for us.