Luna Design Company
Luna Design Company
Luna Design Company

We manufacture reclaimed wood picture frames

since 1996
Reclaiming resources

Reclaiming Resources

Empowering people

Empowering People

Preserving beauty

Preserving Beauty

What is a distressed wood picture frame?

About Luna Designs

Luna Designs handcrafts picture frames and shabby-chic style photo frames from reclaimed timber.

We at Luna Designs are dedicated to preserving the original patina of the reclaimed wood we buy, and the unique character of our vintage frames reflects this passion.

Whether from the deck of a ship, an old painted ceiling or an antique fence, every piece of timber used to produce a distressed wood picture frame tells its own story. The wooden mouldings collected for our shabby chic photo frames are carefully stored and processed on our farm in the Karoo, north of Cape Town. The dry conditions of the Karoo semi-desert ensure that the wood and the old paint is well preserved before being made into a beautiful rustic reclaimed wood picture frame.

Each strip of wood is carefully selected and prepared before being crafted into a unique vintage-look picture frame. Each picture frame is fumigated in a two-step process that involves both heat and chemical treatment before returning to Cape Town to be cleaned and polished, ensuring that the vintage paint remains well preserved. After this process, our Luna Designs rustic picture and photo frames are ready to be packed and shipped to our distribution channels around the world.
Luna Designs picture frame
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The founders

Brian & Mark Fanner

In 1996, brothers Mark and Brian Fanner founded Luna Designs with the intention of creating sustainable jobs in a labour-intensive industry.

Since then, their company has been producing handmade rustic photo frames from recycled wood. Each picture frame is made with great attention to detail in a contemporary industrial style that goes well with modern and shabby chic interiors.

Frame production

The people at Luna Designs

The working atmosphere at Luna Designs is one of respect and trust, free from discrimination. Our management style is responsible and supportive.

Our employees receive a fixed salary and all the benefits prescribed by South African labour law, including paid holidays, sick leave and other benefits.

The solid reclaimed wood used to a create high quality frame is often supplied by homeless and unemployed people who collect the reclaimed wood in Cape Town and surrounding areas. Luna Designs pays these suppliers directly for the wood instead of using middlemen.
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"Luna Designs is committed to fulfilling economic, social and environmental goals.
By efficiently recycling solid wood to create beautiful vintage style photo frames, we can not only contribute to waste reduction, but also give many people hope for the future."

Mark Fanner
Founder

Ideas for designing picture walls

The St. Petersburg hanging

The St. Petersburg hanging, whose name goes back to the lavishly hung walls of the St. Petersburg Hermitage, refers to a particularly close arrangement of picture frames.

These often reach up to the ceiling and the picture frames hang very close together. The St Petersburg hanging, (also called salon hanging) looks simple, but a lot of planning goes into such a design.

It is important to maintain the "organised chaos" when hanging picture and photo frames in the St. Petersburg style. We recommend a distance of between 4 and 10 cm between each photo frame within a picture wall.
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How to curate a gallery wall

  • How to curate a gallery wall - Luna Designs Rustic Frames 1
  • How to curate a gallery wall - Luna Designs Rustic Frames 2
  • How to curate a gallery wall - Luna Designs Rustic Frames 3
  • How to curate a gallery wall - Luna Designs Rustic Frames 4
  • How to curate a gallery wall - Luna Designs Rustic Frames 5
  • How to curate a gallery wall - Luna Designs Rustic Frames 6
  • How to curate a gallery wall - Luna Designs Rustic Frames 7

Memories of the best moments of life

A distressed wood photo frame from Luna Designs is suitable not just for photos.

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What to put in a distressed wood picture frames

When it comes to putting interesting things in a wooden picture frame, there are countless possibilities and you can really let your creativity run wild when it comes to framing unconventional and unique items. There are plenty of unique ideas for placing an item in a Luna Designs wood photo frame. If it has a special place in your heart, why not frame it in a Luna Designs rustic picture frame and give it the special wall space it deserves? Perhaps your home is already adorned with wall art and artwork, and you just want to spice it up a little. But it's not so easy to find unique ideas for a distressed wooden picture frame - you need to think not only about what items really mean something to you, but also what artwork would look good in a Luna Designs picture frame on the wall.

Here are some ideas and inspiration for creating wall decor in your living room, home office or bedroom.

All of these ideas using a Luna Designs photo frame not only look great in your own home, but also make unique gifts for friends and family! Picture frames are designed to showcase and preserve a special piece of art, a personal photo or something you cherish. Why not share these special moments and give them beautiful memories? Whether you are looking for a unique poster frame for your home or a gift idea to share with someone, here are multiple ways to put a Luna Designs wooden frame to excellent use!
What to put in picture frames

Favourite book covers

Book covers are usually works of art in themselves, so why not frame them in a Luna Designs picture frame, hang them on your wall and be reminded of your favourite literature.

Handwritten letters

Handwritten items are particularly personal and truly unique. Vintage letters or postcards can even have an old-fashioned and weathered look and have a lot of personality. Set inside a Luna Designs vintage style picture frame, the nostalgia is bound to kick in.
What to put in picture frames
What to put in picture frames

Your photos

Colour, Black & White or Sepia... your images in Luna Designs photo frames will look truly amazing! We recommend soft images (people, landscapes and anything that does not have "hard" edges) in more weathered frames. Architecture and less "soft" images look better in more homogenous photo frames.

Botanical drawings

A poster of a botanical drawing looks absolutely stunning in a Luna Designs recycled wood photo frame. Due to the solid reclaimed wood used for our picture frames the drawing inside really comes to life.
What to put in picture frames
What to put in picture frames

Vintage drawings

Vintage technical drawings of cars, scooters, ships and aeroplanes look amazing in a distressed wood picture frame. If you don't have these images on hand, there are a number of stock image libraries where these can be downloaded - often even for free.

Memorabilia in a vintage frame 

Check your drawers for cherished memory you picked up at an unforgettable concert all those years ago and see what it looks like in a rustic wood picture frame made by Luna Designs. It rocks!
What to put in picture frames
What to put in picture frames

Vintage maps

There are a number of websites offering vintage maps for sale. Just google vintage maps and you should find an abundance of suppliers. So whether it is your home town, a dream destination of just a pretty old map, these vintage maps look absolutely awesome in Luna Designs distressed wood vintage frames.
The best home decor for you or someone else can often be created with the most unusual images and objects. The nicest part of framing items in a truly unique Luna Designs photo frame is that there are no set guidelines; you determine what to frame in each photo frame and how to design it. Perhaps you already have items around your house that ought to be framed in a Luna Designs photo frame.

Wall colours for your living room

Luna Designs photos frames work amazingly well when hung on either a face-brick or a strongly coloured wall. 

  • brick wall in a living room
  • olive wall colours for a living room
  • light blue wall colours for a living room
  • Turquoise wall colours for a living room
  • Teal wall colours for a living room
  • dark blue wall colours for a living room
  • dark grey wall colours for a living room
  • mustard wall colours for a living room

Frame size, picture size, clear dimension - what is the difference?

At Luna Designs, the picture frame formats are named after the picture size; for example, an A4 photo frame is a format that fits an A4 (29.7 x 21.0 cm) picture. The frame size is 42 x 34 cm and the clear dimension is 27.7 x 19 cm.
Barnwood rustic frame sizes

1.

frame size

Here we are talking about the outer dimensions of the picture frame. These dimensions are independent of the size of the picture.

2.

picture size

The picture size is usually the same as the 3mm glass or the backing board of the picture frame. In the case of Luna Designs old wood picture frames, approx. 1cm of each side of the picture is covered by the picture frame.

3.

clear dimension

The clear dimension defines the dimension on which light falls, i.e. the dimension of what you can actually see of the picture after it has been framed.

Frame formats and how we use these in our product description

Frame formats and sizes
Format
Description
Dimension
A3
A3
420 x 297mm
A3Q
A3 square (quad.)
297 x 297 mm
A3S
A3 panoramic
420 x 210 mm
A4
A4
297 x 210 mm
A4Q
A4 square (quad.)
210 x 210 mm
A4S
A4 panoramic
297 x 148 mm
A5
A5
210 x 148 mm
A5Q
A5 square (quad.)
148 x 148 mm
A5S
A5 panoramic
210 x 105 mm
A6
A6
148 x 105 mm
A6Q
A6 square (quad.)
105 x 105 mm
rethink.photos - generate income as a photographer on commission based sales.

Rethink Photos - the tool that generates after sales income for photographers

As a photographer you can now invite your customers to have their recent family, wedding or any other shooting framed in Luna Designs photo frames. We do the printing, framing and logistics - you collect the commission. Each frame sold generates a commission based income for you.
  • Choosing the right photo frames for your images
  • Choosing the right photo frames for your images
  • Choosing the right photo frames for your images
  • Choosing the right photo frames for your images
  • Choosing the right photo frames for your images
  • Choosing the right photo frames for your images
  • Choosing the right photo frames for your images
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