October 8, 2008 at 4:01 pm (GMT) by Paul | 16 Comments Latest by Sam

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UPDATE: That was quick! We’ve sold out of the first batch - but we have more on the way and are hoping they’ll be available to buy on Monday! Sorry for any disappointment. When we said we had a ‘limited number’ - this wasn’t quite the limited we meant - there are more to come, please bare with us.
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Hi, my name is Paul Thorogood and I’m the Product Designer at MOO. I’m the person who designs everything you physically get to play with - from packaging to products, like the new Mosaic Frame.

As you can see in the video, the Mosaic Frame is a fun, easy way to display your MiniCards - and, just like the MiniCards, every frame can be different.

You might like to know that we got our inspiration for the Mosaic Frame from you - our customers, and all the amazing ways you’ve displayed your MiniCards. In the past, we’ve created acrylic frames to exhibit MiniCard designs at our parties. We liked them so much, and they got such a good reception from our guests, we decided to make them a permanent fixture in our office - and we’re always getting comments on how good they look.

Here’s a photo taken by Jeff Veen when he popped by the office:

With the Mosaic Frame, we wanted to create something unique, versatile and easy-to-do, because we found the acrylic frames were time consuming and a little complicated. We also wanted to let people display their MiniCards in landscape or portrait format, within the same frame - because not all your cards are the same way up, as we’d seen in the photos in the pool.

And so the new Mosaic Frame shouldn’t be thought of as one frame, but as 20 MiniFrames inside a larger one, which create a pattern. This pattern allows each individual MiniFrame to be shuffled around into different positions - landscape or portrait with no gaps. There’s a huge variety of ways to lay out your cards, and even the frame itself can be hung in a landscape or portrait position.

You can find out more about the frame or check out these top tips for assembly.

Top Tips when assembling Mosaic Frame

1. Assembly or handling
When assembling or handling, make sure your hands and the surrounding area are clean and free from dirt or dust! (Dirt can get trapped in between the two panels and can be hard to remove). And remember - to remove or handle the clear front panel and avoid getting unsightly finger prints, always lift the panel with both hands flat against the opposite thin edges.

2. Which way up?
Make sure you have your frame in the correct orientation (landscape or portrait) before removing screws - the ‘keyholes’ are located on the reverse of the white panel, and are used to hang the frame. For the correct orientation, make sure these are at the top.

3. Lay it down
Assemble and dismantle the Mosaic Frame on a flat surface, to prevent movement and loss of components. (The frame should come with the screw heads (male screws) located at the front of the frame). Always close frames on a flat surface, to stop the screws rolling away!

4. Avoid being charged
When removing the frame from the protective packaging it might become statically charged, making the MiniCards lift out of their frames when replacing the front acrylic panel. To prevent this, wipe with an anti-static cloth (if one is available) or clean with a normal household window cleaner. (Always make sure that both the front and back acrylic panels are dry after cleaning to prevent damaging the card sections of the frame - and try to use a lint free cloth to avoid unwanted fibres getting trapped in between the panels).

5. Laying out your cards
Once you’ve chosen which way you’d like to hang your Mosaic Frame (landscape or portrait) the next thing to do is work on your design. After practicing this many times, we’ve found the easiest way to do this is to lay down each MiniFrame in the orientation required specific to the MiniCard chosen, then place the MiniCard in the frame once it is in position. It sounds a bit complicated, but once you start you’ll see it’s not! The brilliant thing is, if you hang it and don�t like the layout after a week, month or year, simply take down and jiggle it about a bit until you’re happy.

6. Be firm - but not too firm!
Always make sure that the screws are fully tightened to prevent movement of the MiniFrames, but be careful not to over tighten as this could damage the acrylic panels or cause them to crack.

7. Hang Ups
Be careful when hanging, not to bump the frame too hard as it could knock the MiniCards out of place. To hang the frame you will either need two screws with rawl plugs, or nails (nails should only be used to hang on a wooden surfaces) to go into the wall. Position the screws/nails 148mm apart to hang portrait and 279mm apart to hang landscape, making sure that the heads are no larger the 9mm in diameter and no smaller than 4mm in diameter. Measure the distance between the screws from the centre of the heads. (As you can guess, I’m quite good at DIY, but don’t worry, the frames look really good resting on a shelf too.)

8. Use me and abuse me
When developing theMosaic Frame we came up with numerous things you could use them for including art pieces, presents with a personal touch and picture displays for both the home and office. Please let us know what you do with yours and if you have any photos, feel free to post them to the Flickr Pool, or our Facebook group, as we’d love to see!