[Scriptoris] Standard document sizes, and framing said documents

[Diane Rudin]

>From the desk of the person who established the standardized document size
recommendations:

The document size standards were established for the following reasons:

(1)  Most people getting a higher-level award expect to get a bigger piece of
paper.

(2)  It makes it easier when flipping through a stack to tell an Iris from a
Thistle.

(3)  Documents were being created in all sorts of different sizes, and
recipients were having problems getting them framed.

Therefore we chose to use what were then five common frame sizes:  8x10, 9x12,
11x14, 16x20, 18x24.  I believe at some point we dropped the 8x10 size for
non-armigerous awards and bumped them up to the same 9x12 as the armigerous
awards.

Now it seems that 9x12 is no longer a standard, easily-available frame size. 
Perhaps we need to look at photo-reducing them to 8.5x11?  Is that now a more
commonly available frame size than 9x12?

Frankly, none of my pre-printed documents are matted; only my originals are
matted, and they were all custom jobs so I could get pH-neutral archival
framing.  I'll try to remember to look out for available mat sizes next time
I'm at Hobby Lobby.

Someone (I don't remember who; mea culpa) said in an earlier post on this topic
something about 1-inch frame pieces.  That was never a consideration.  We were
absolutely only looking at commercially available, pre-assembled frames.

I guess I don't understand what's meant by "black borders" on documents.  Are
we talking about the size cutting lines for the maller-than-11x14 documents? 
Why aren't those cut off?  Aren't we cutting documents to size before giving
them to the heralds?

I was horrified by a mention of a $35 price tag per document to frame
documents.  I've never paid as much as five dollars to frame a pre-printed
document.  What is that price based on?

I have the odd feeling that I've walked into the middle of a conversation in
which everyone else is talking about something that everyone knows all about,
so they're talking in jargon/shorthand, and I'm therefore a little lost, even
though I know the history behind what they're talking about.

Since I'm in charge of document texts and standards for Ansteorra, I hope
someone can explain all of this to me more clearly before I start working on
revising the blasted book.

--Serena

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