Framing art is shockingly difficult.

There is nothing more enjoyable to me than people finally finding art they enjoy. The process of narrowing down the options can take minutes of flipping through prints at Steve Argyle's table, or can be a saving of funds, building a war chest while waiting for a painting to finally hit the open market. The advice I usually offer is to hone in on what you want, keep a short list, and then focus. This even works for prints!

And then, they go to Michaels to get a piece framed.

I'll point to my 101 article as a good place to start when it comes to framing. Once the art is chosen, oh how difficult the next step can be. The framing process is ripe with errors when an hourly employee is handling the art, helping you choose the same boring frame 100s of others have chosen. Framing is difficult, and there is a real cost to having a framing job redone. So why don't we make sure you have it done right the first time?

Seeing as we're currently on Ravnica, the plane where players personify playable guilds, my content should change to reflect the current state of the game. People are constantly buying Magic art, whether an original piece or a print; and, during these few months, people will look back to cards and artworks of their favorite guild. Artists who have been around a while will sell more prints, especially for cards featured in the Ravnica Guild Kits. With such a focus on the guilds, let's discuss how those guilds would approach framing a piece of art.

James Arnold, now a graphic designer at Wizards of the Coast, created one of the best Ravnica articles ever with Cereals of Ravnica, and I strive to even come close to that masterpiece of Magic content.

So, let's get started!

The Azorius Senate

The law-mages of the Azorius Senate wish to improve their world by imposing order. The Azorius are rules-centric and look to force their rules upon the people around them. Do you know the type of person who frames photos of their engagement? And their baby announcement photos? You know, the one with tiny blue shoes? You best believe they will make you look at the photos when you visit, just to see your face, which better be lit up with approval and joy. That is a perfect representation of the Detain mechanic, preventing you from doing anything other than engage with an object.

The Azorius would take the longest when it comes to framing choices. They wouldn't be able to decide which frames looked the most harmonious, arguing about the correct choice until everyone was in agreement. Often, when someone must visit, they would finally be forced to frame an artwork, like an engagement, bridal, or baby shower.

Image via Target.com

They love white, faux-hand painted frames, despite that they often look terrible. Those frames just seem more orderly and stuffy. (They totally didn't make it but they want to make it look like everything was handmade.)

Image via Etsy.com

The Boros Legion

The Boros are effectively the police force of Ravnica, and their sense of morality embodies the adage "the end always justifies the means". As a result, they often don't play fair. As for art and abilities, the Mentor ability manifests in Boros homes with rewards. Be promoted and you get a room at a barracks. Get promoted again and you get some propaganda art. Be promoted once more, and you can choose which art! The list of framing options may be short, though, since most people in the guild are preoccupied by their normal duties. You'll have to wait a while to get them framed.

Playing off of Radiance, the Boros would get framing discounts since they all go in on it together. It's cheap, but they must also wait in a queue until enough people are available to make a bulk shipment. The Battalion mechanic? Good luck getting art framed unless two other people are also involved, and that's even if you have a bunch of artworks!

That said, when the Boros hand you something, it's often weeks of hand-made work, intricate woodcarving (similar to scrimshaw), from a framer who is most likely a bored soldier. They'd be chipping away at it during their downtime. They know the framer and he or she checks in often to show progress.

Image via aalmarkllc.com

House Dimir

This is the nefarious guild, sure, but the vast majority of guild members have pretty boring information based jobs. Your librarians, programmers, post office, reporters, archivists, and even curators are all Dimir card-carrying members. Their assassins are still there, but there just aren't that many of them and they're near impossible to locate. So how would a guild with Transmute, a mechanic that is inherently about having options, frame their work?

The answer is frames with customizable options, normally a cheaper frame with different mats. These are the folks who buy digital photo frames because they can be anything they want. That said, since they've fallen out of favor, they change their art just as they change personalities. They also are the information people, meaning they have mini exhibits at home. Their framing looks expensive, museum quality, but the frames are more expensive than the art itself. The art often changes, changing the experience with every new bit of visual information, which they love.

Image via Dickblick

The Golgari Swarm

Oh how the Golgari love art that wilts away. This is called Ephemera art.

So, like, bugs in cases?

No, not like bugs.

Unless the bugs are in wooden cabinets of curiosities, then yes.

Image via gdblogs.shu.ac.uk

Since they're all about birth, death, decay, and new life, they love themselves some agricultural art, sure, but they also are mega huge fans of collectible art that isn't supposed to last. They will it to continue. This would include things like posters, greeting cards, one-time Izzet spells, or visual memories of a Rakdos show they can "relive" again. If YouTube existed on Ravnica, the swarm members would love it. Art can be reborn again and again.

The recursive nature of Dredge and Scavenge shows that one-time use art, even remade into collages, mixed media pieces, and multimedia art is their jam. And you best believe that their creations get old due to their Black nature. At that point they need to be reimagined, reformed from their Green into something new. Reclaimed wood frames they can't use for other things? You bet they use those.

Image via vidalcuglietta.com

This means their frames don't change because the art always does.

This also brings to light the idea of living art temporarily encased in a home. Think of a beehive or an ornate fish tank with the mini castles and additions being constantly rearranged and changed.

Yuansu Projects by Ren Ri

Image via lsnglobal.com

The Gruul Clans

The Gruul were like the Filson-wearing noble hippies, originally. They weren't all bloodlusty. They were canoe fans who had a spiritual connection to the wilderness, encouraging other Ravnican denizens to visit. They were the forest rangers, until the city encompassed the plane and wilderness no longer existed.

Then they got furious because of the lack of their wilderness, effectively exiled, enslaved, and abused by other guilds. They're violent and often lash out, which, is arguably justified.

Their art is largely sculptural and usable. While they do have many tattoos, for "framing" as it were, it's creating a space on a wall for decorative art, that is, functional art.

Bloodlust implies a greater meaning after damage has been done, their ability means something was used and has a greater meaning. Textile arts for example, are framed in spaces according to the wall more than a random frame, and their meaning is as deep as the culture that came from it. Fiber arts are also in Gruul territory.

While the Gruul may have 2D art, it's always mobile and you best believe the frame is wild looking.

Image via westelm.com

Image via gardentherapy.ca

Or the framing itself informs the living thing that has been "saved" from being trampled by cobbled street, uppity folks.

The Izzet League

You would perhaps be surprised to find that the Izzet don't think about framing art at all.

While they have art in their respective homes, the creativity needed to frame is too methodical and there aren't enough ways to use dynamite or iterate on the process. Most of the time, the only reason the Izzet frame something at all is because it continues to inspire them in their other work. As such, they often buy cheap frames from Target or IKEA and leave them blank on the wall, spaces open for future creations. Their Replicate ability? Basically the "ideas" all have frames to fit within. They're free thinkers, but even they must write some things down to test.

Image by stylebyemilyhenderson.com

Their Overload and Jump-Start abilities are focused on the one node where it can explode out, or encompass the many. They would love a machine that could project the ridiculous ideas in their heads onto a surface, thoughts and brilliance on a wall in perfect replication. However, due to their weird working hours (when brilliance hits after all), their underlings often have to transcribe like a Leonardo Da Vinci note page, and place it onto the wall so the real geniuses can see them in context, digest the following day, and create again.

White boards are too simplistic a concept, their walls are final, painted and created ideas. Then again, some of those quickly framed ideas are immediately torn off the wall and burned in a pile, only to have a new frame placed on the wall tomorrow to fill with ideas.

The Orzhov Syndicate

The Orzhov are the investors of the art world. The art doesn't matter at all to them, but the framing sure does. They believe in the highest quality framing components, perfect museum glass made from German precision lasers. They even check if mats are acidic every year to make sure their investment is being protected, hermetically sealed. Oil paintings have highly valuable wood frames, often with golden inlays and other precious materials.

And you best believe the humidity is strictly locked down in the areas they house art. Sculptures will have cases atop them.

They have many wealthy ancestors who commissioned marquee artists for busts, not unlike a Gian Lorenzo Bernini making sculptures for bishops and clergymen, or other court painters. Sadly, they often commission artists with issues. Their main Gatecrash ability Extort? You best believe the framers and artists who make their ego-driven art do so for fractions of the total cost, or as part of paying back a debt.

Bust of Pope Paul V by Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Iage via spectator.sme.sk

Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez

Image via www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au

And yeah, all their art is super haunted. Those eyes in the portrait?

They are totally following you.

It's probably fine.

The Cult of Rakdos

More than mere torturers, Rakdos are the service industry. From catering companies to event spaces for parties, to butchers, they work with food and entertaining. They are the hedonistic guild, with most members only going on benders during guild hoildays or for specific reasons. Think of the Purge where anything is legal for 24 hours, except it isn't and they don't care that it isn't. But they'll be back at work planning some boring formal dinner the Azorius folks paid good money for, and you can bet they'll be hungover.

Rakdos loves experiences, but they also like the high art that comes from it. When you think of Robert Mapplethorpe high-end black and white photography, that all have a story, that's Rakdos.

Image via xavierhufkens.com

Their Hellbent ability manifests in that they have no history, no background. People don't write things down because they're looking for the next thing, the next largest. Occasionally a friend will frame an amazing moment with a photograph, or have a weird piece of dark art that has incredible meaning to them but they won't say what it is. That's Rakdos. Their art is performative and is to be appreciated openly, even if it does smell rank.

Chris Ofili, "The Holy Virgin Mary" (1996)

Image via hyperallergic.com

Their unleash mechanic is the shock art. Blood, and other bodily fluids that can make up art? Chris Ofili and Andres Serrano are their favorite artists. Their art is meant to shock you and yes, none of it is safe for work. It's all very pretty though.

The Selesnya Conclave

Selesnya art is largely terrible because it's often made by committee. And since their art needs full approval by others, their framing is often very basic because they all can't agree. Think of hotels that have different art with similar in them. That is Selesnya. They convoke together, to sacrifice the whole from the many.

Image via ihgplc.com

If you have seen designers needing to work to appease different perspectives, that's Selesnya. The framing of art is secondary to how much it matters to the overall room. Things often have hidden or non-existent frames because that might impact the theme and feel of the entire room. The ability Populate they have? Bingo. They take one token, and then copy it. You want a nature room? Looks like there will be nature everything in there because nothing else fits the theme. At least they always add plants to every room.

It took six people to agree on this room and while everyone can add a little of their opinion, it's only if it fits with everyone else's mood. Mood boards on Pinterest? It's a game for Selesnya, and while impressive at first, when you actually live there, it's so overdesigned you feel out of place if you slightly shift anything.

Image via Expedia.com

The Simic Combine

We aren't entirely sure who the Simic Combine is these days because their former ruler doctor in Momir Vig was killed. The Return to Ravnica iteration were largely merfolk from the vast subterranean oceans.

The Simic love their reflective art. Their first go at bio-enhanced art to show individual likenesses and DNA helixes, and deformities was a bit much. It was extra. Now, instead of weird water portal things on the wall that were Snow White art things, they have more static art. Art doesn't work great underwater unless it's sculptural...or Mosaic.

As such, their art evolves just as their mechanic Evolve does. As families increase (or decrease) in size, the mosaic on their wall or on the ground will also change. Venerating the past is gone, just as the abyss of the deep carries back with it no knowledge, insight, or survivors.

Image via http://supertextcrown.com

Sometimes their art is representational, with meaning only known to them. The frame is really just solid concrete or another hard mixture to hold their creations. Though sometimes it's aspirational, to keep Momir Vig's vision somewhat alive, despite his methods being utterly wrong.

Image via hostelz.com

The great guildless contingent of Ravnica is hard to poll, though most reports are that they pick and choose what they like. They rarely choose Rakdos art though... it tends to smell.

-Mike