Magnetic Picture Frames

Magnetic Picture Frames with a Stand

One of the items I decided to design and sell under my business, itty bitty builds, was little picture frames that could fit Instax Mini photos. I wanted these frames to be magnetic so that I could hang them on the fridge but I also wanted them to have a stand of some sort so that I could also set them on a flat surface like my desk. Making the frame stand was not that difficult, but trying to store the stand within the frame was.

Design Process

I made the design for the frame in Adobe Illustrator. This worked well because I was able to accurately specify all of the dimensions.

This is another view of the Illustrator frame.

Once I drew the design, I brought the Illustrator file into Bambu Studio and used it to make a 3D model.

From left to right shows the progression of including a stand in the frame design. As you can see, the earlier models did not include a stand whatsoever, they only had magnets in them. The first iteration with a stand meant to house the stand flush against the back and the stand was supposed to just pop out. While this design worked sometimes, I didn't like that the stand could possibly fall out and be lost. The next iterations included the stand inside a little pouch. I made slight tweaks between these two designs including the placement of the pouch and the thickness of the frame.