Now that you just have become the lucky owner of a cool BadFish poster and are eagerly holding the cardboard tube in your hands, please hold on for a second, before you unpack it or your good poster could be wounded forever, just because of poor handling.

For any cool poster, condition equals personal value. The better the condition, the higher the value. This is especially true with a BadFish poster. Here are our recommendations for the proper unpacking and handling of your newly arrived product.

First, you’ll need the right supplies. You need cotton gloves, to avoid finger marks on the poster. If you don’t have gloves by hand, make sure that your hands are clean and dry, and remain so throughout the handling process.

You need a cutter to carefully cut the transparent tape of the two paper strips (with a BadFishPosters logo on it) securing the rolled poster at each end.

And finally, you will need a clean table to unroll the poster.

Safe unpacking of your poster

First remove the plastic lock of the cardboard tube at one end only! Then take the poster carefully out. Be cautious while cutting the transparent tape of the two securing paper strips.

Remove the protection (silk or tissue paper) while still holding the poster with one hand to avoid unintentional unravelling.

Unroll the poster very carefully and leave it for a few hours on the table so that it can flatten. You can flip the poster later on to help flatten it by its own weight. When it’s a large format poster, you have to do this very carefully, because of the size, the corners could get bent, or the poster could fold and take damage. You may ask a friend to assist you.

There are a variety of framing options available including purchasing pre-fabricated frames, ordering custom frames, or for do-it-yourselfers: purchasing frame borders that need to be cut and assembled at home. We recommend UV filtering glass or acrylic protectors that shield the poster from the elements and are also part of the framing options that you should think about when making your framing purchases.

Place the frame face down on a table and open the fasteners of the backing and remove it. Take out the glass or protector and clean both sides before continuing framing. Position the poster face down on top of the glass or acrylic protector, and add the backing of the frame. Check the front of the frame to make sure the poster is centered correctly, and then secure the protector, the poster, and backing down with the fasteners included in the frame. Done. That was easy.

Most frames come with a metal wire to be attached on the backside for hanging the poster frame onto the wall. To do so, measure about one-thirds down from the top of the frame and attach D-rings on both sides of the back of the frame to hold the wire for hanging. Finally, cut the wire with pincers to one and one-half the length of the horizontal measurement of the frame. Wrap the wire around the D-rings with needle-nose pliers, leaving enough slack in the middle so that the picture can hang comfortably. Great, you did it.