Frequently asked questions

Pick a route: a Strava activity, a GPX file or a race course. The studio draws it straight away. Everything after that lives in four tabs, in the order most people work:

• Theme: the overall look
• Colours: adjust any colour the theme chose
• Layout: the shape of the page
• Content: what it actually says

Designing is free and unlimited. You only pay when you want the file or a print.

If you saw a poster you liked on the races page, open that race and click its poster: it opens in the studio on that race, with its own theme, layout, typography and colours already set, your own name and time still to fill in, and everything editable.

A theme is one click that sets every colour on the poster at once: the route, the map background, roads, water, parks, buildings, trails, the text and the stats. Colours is where you change any one of them afterwards. They sit side by side because a theme is the starting point and Colours is for fine-tuning, and “Reset to theme defaults” always takes you back to the theme you picked.

23 themes, in 3 groups: Artistic, Light, Dark. Each one redraws the map, the route and the type together, so they're whole designs rather than colour swaps.

It rolls a fresh palette: one background, one route colour, and the rest derived from those two so the route never sinks into the map and the title never turns unreadable. Click it again for another roll, and “Reset to theme defaults” comes back to your last roll, not to where you started.

Three arrangements, each in portrait or landscape:

• Classic: the date, city, activity and stats in a band under the map, stacked and centred in portrait and side by side in landscape, which leaves the map more of the page
• Magazine: the map runs full-bleed with the title over it, like a cover
• Medallion: the map is cut into a circle, with the city and stats below

The details page shows all three on one route, side by side, so you can see what each does.

Each layout has a title budget, roughly what fits on two lines at that size:

• Classic: 52 characters
• Magazine: 32 characters
• Medallion: 34 characters

Magazine's is the tightest because its title is the biggest thing on the page. Its cover title sizes itself to the name: a short city is set at the full size, a longer one smaller so it still fits on one line. Only a name too long even for that takes a second line, set smaller again, and a single very long word is trimmed rather than run past the edge. If a long city name won't fit, try the Grandstand typography: it's the condensed one, and it holds names the others wrap.

Four typography themes, each a complete type system rather than a single font:

• Editorial: Classy & artful · Cormorant
• Modern: Bold & contemporary · Raleway Black
• Grandstand: Condensed & sporting · Oswald
• Boutique: Luxe & high-contrast · Playfair Display

They're independent of the theme and the layout, so any combination works. All four are set on the same poster on The details page, cropped to the lettering, because a face is too small to judge on a whole poster the size of a thumbnail.

Four lines, and each can be edited or switched off entirely:

• Location: the city, not the full address
• Activity name
• Athlete
• Date

They start filled in from the route itself, so a poster is finished before you touch anything.

• Headline: distance, time and pace
• Extras: elevation, average and max speed, heart rate, calories, energy, cadence, power, elapsed time, max elevation, temperature and gear

Every value is editable, so you can correct one or type it in yourself, and the km/mi switch re-labels them all. Some layouts show fewer extras than others; the studio tells you when a selection won't appear.

Yes. Unlock the padlock beside the zoom controls, then drag the map to reposition the route inside the frame and zoom to tighten or widen the crop. On a phone, tap Map at the foot of the studio instead: it unlocks the map for as long as it's open. What you see is what prints. This works in the Fit view: at Real size, dragging scrolls the poster instead.

How far you can widen depends on the route: we fetch a map area sized around it, and the controls stop at the point where the paper would run past the map rather than letting you reach a poster with a bare edge. A compact route can widen further than a sprawling one.

Every map layer has its own switch, and each one its own colour: roads, streets, water and parks, landcover, railways, buildings and trails. Turning a layer off removes it from the poster rather than fading it, so a city can be as bare or as dense as you want it. Roads and streets are separate switches, so you can keep the through-roads, keep only the residential grid, or draw both.

“Streets” starts switched off, because on a big city it takes the longest to draw. If the map looks sparse rather than busy, it is the one to switch on first; it builds in as you watch, a ring at a time. On a route that covers a whole region it cannot help, for the reason in the next answer.

Because the whole region has to fit on one sheet. A poster of a multi-day tour or a very long ultra is drawn from a wider, coarser slice of the same map data. Main roads, water, parkland, landcover and railways all draw exactly as they do on any other poster.

What cannot draw is the close-up detail. The residential street grid, the buildings and the footpaths only exist in the map at closer zooms, so on a route that size there is nothing to draw. The studio names whichever of those you have switched on and offers to switch them off.

The distance markers thin out to match: one badge per kilometre would bury a long route under its own numbering, so a route that would need more than 60 of them counts in tens, twenties or fifties instead, and each badge prints the distance it marks. Everything else, every theme, layout, sheet and colour, works exactly as it does on a shorter route.

That's the preview. The file you buy has no watermark and prints at full resolution. The mark is only there so the preview can't be used instead of the file.

Yes. The preview follows the size you pick, and that makes a real difference. The three sizes are not one poster at three scales. A bigger sheet widens the subject: a 30×40 pulls the route back to show more of the city around it, while an A5 fills the page with the run itself and holds its smallest lettering at a size you can still read on paper. Choose the size in the studio and you are looking at the sheet you would receive. The details page draws the three side by side at their real relative sizes, if you want to see how much bigger a 30×40 actually is.

Switch to Real size, next to the zoom buttons or in the Layout tab. It draws the poster at the sheet's actual millimetres, so you can see how big the lettering and the streets really are, and you scroll around whatever doesn't fit your screen.

The first time, it asks you to hold a bank card against the screen and match its short edge. Bank cards are all the same size, so that one measurement makes the preview accurate.

No. Your route and every setting come back when you return. The one exception is an uploaded GPX file: those are held only for the browser session, so you'll need to upload the track again (your settings will still be there).

Yes, until you pay. Press Edit design under it in your basket: it opens in the studio just as you left it, and Update basket saves your changes to that same poster. Its format, size, frame and copies can also be changed right in the basket.

A poster made from a GPX file needs that file still uploaded in this browser, and one made from a Strava activity needs you connected to Strava.

The preview is the proof. The file is made by the same code, so it looks the same. If a file does come out faulty, or a print arrives damaged, we replace or refund it.

Not yet. Both are on our list, but we can't say when. If you want one of them, tell us. It's how these get prioritised.

Open the studio, choose the Strava tab and press Connect with Strava. Strava asks you to approve the connection, and your activities appear.

⚠️ On Strava's approval screen, leave the box about private activities ticked. Unticking it doesn't just hide private runs: it withholds permission to read any of your activities, so nothing loads at all. If your list comes up empty, that's almost always why: disconnect and connect again with the box ticked.

Any activity with GPS in it: runs, rides, walks, hikes, swims that were tracked outdoors. Treadmill and indoor sessions have no route to draw. Your history loads in the background, so a long back-catalogue keeps filling in while you work.

No. If you've asked Strava to hide the area around your start and finish, or to hide them everywhere, Strava gives us the route already trimmed and the poster draws what we were given. Change the setting on Strava and reconnect, and the poster follows. You can always see exactly what you'll get: the preview is the poster.

One thing worth knowing: when you connect, Strava asks whether to let us see your private activities. Allowing that also lets us see inside your hidden areas, so the route is drawn in full. If you'd rather it stayed trimmed, connect without ticking that box. Your “Only You” activities won't be available to frame, but everything else will be.

Strava tells us about new activities as they're uploaded, so it usually appears within moments. Reload the studio. If it still isn't there, check it has GPS data and that it isn't hidden by a Strava privacy setting.

Revoke access at strava.com/settings/apps. Strava tells us, and we delete your name, your tokens and every stored activity automatically. You don't have to ask us as well. Posters you've already bought aren't affected: they stay yours to download.

Strava caps how many athletes an app may connect at once. If you ever see that message, nothing is wrong with your account and nothing else has to wait: a GPX file or a race course makes exactly the same poster, with no account needed.

A GPX file is the plain-text record of a route: the trail of coordinates your watch or phone recorded. Almost everything exports one: Garmin Connect, Komoot, Suunto, Polar, Wahoo, and Strava itself (open an activity, then Export GPX). Upload it in the studio's GPX tab and it draws like any other route.

Up to 10 files at a time, 30 MB each, comfortably more than a long ultra with every second recorded. We hold them only for your browser session: close the browser and they're gone, which is why a returning design asks you to upload the track again.

A GPX carries the route, and often not much else: heart rate, calories and power usually aren't in it. Those fields stay empty, and you can type in the real numbers yourself. Distance and elevation are calculated from the track.

55 courses:

• Marathon: 37
• Half Marathon: 12
• 10K: 3
• Quarter Marathon: 1
• 10 Miles: 1
• 5K: 1

Filter by distance, pick the year, and the course drops into the studio like any other route, with no account, no file and no run of your own required.

Because it's the official course, not your GPS trace: the line the race was run on, without the weaving, the tunnel dropouts or the extra metres round the aid stations. It also carries no time or pace, since it isn't your run: those show as “—” until you type in your own.

Posters read “City · Distance · Year”, a factual description of a place, a distance and a date; a race that runs from one town to another names both ends. Where that still doesn't tell two races apart, we add the venue or the event's own name. We never use an organiser's logo, and never a sponsor's name, so a title here won't match the branding on your race bib.

Tell us which one and we'll look at adding it, and there's a form for exactly that. In the meantime, a GPX export of the course (most organisers publish one) makes the same poster today.

A print-ready PDF at 300 DPI or better, watermark-free, sized for the format you picked, yours to print at home, at a print shop, or anywhere you like.

It is a PDF because that is what a print shop can act on without asking you anything: the page carries its real size in millimetres and marks exactly where to trim, so "print this at 30×40" is the whole conversation. If you would rather have the image on its own, the same poster is also a PNG at the same resolution: change the ".pdf" on the end of your download link to ".png".

Every download is 3543 px wide, whichever size you designed for. On the largest sheet we sell, 30×40, that is 3543×4724 px at 300 DPI, and a smaller sheet gets more DPI, so picking A5 costs you no resolution.

The file is a little larger than the sheet on purpose: it carries 3 mm of bleed on every side, real map that a print shop trims into when it prints right to the edge. Nothing you designed lives out there. The exact measurements are in the answer about bleed.

No. A print buys the print, and the file is a separate purchase: they're priced independently because they're different products. If you want both, add both to your basket; the file arrives immediately and the print follows by post.

Three sizes, each as a poster on its own or ready-framed:

• A5: 14.8 × 21 cm
• A4: 21 × 29.7 cm
• 30×40: 30 × 40 cm

They are composed for their own sheets rather than scaled from one another, so it is worth switching between them in the studio before you choose. The picker is in the Layout tab, drawn to scale.

You choose between a digital file, a poster print and a framed print, and the size, just above the Add to basket button, and you can still change the product, the size and the frame in your basket before you pay.

A514.8 × 21 cm16 × 22 cm framedPrint€15Framed€23

A421 × 29.7 cm22 × 31 cm framedPrint€20Framed€30

30×4030 × 40 cm31 × 41 cm framedPrint€28Framed€40

A bigger sheet pulls the route back to show more of the city. A smaller one fills the page with the run, and keeps its smallest lettering readable in the hand.

• Paper. Heavy 250 g/m² matt, printed to the edge with no white border.
• Frame. Slim black aluminium with a plexiglass front, 5 to 6.5 mm wider than the print on each side.
• Digital file. €7 at any size, print-ready at 300 DPI or better.

Heavy 250 g/m² matt white paper, the same for every size, printed to the edge of the sheet with no white border.

A slim black aluminium frame with a clear plexiglass front. On the outside it measures:

• A5: 16 × 22 cm
• A4: 22 × 31 cm
• 30×40: 31 × 41 cm

So it is only 5 to 6.5 mm wider than the print on each side. Its lip can't reach further in than that, and every word and number on your poster sits at least 11 mm in from the edge, so the frame never covers any of it.

Almost certainly not. Every poster keeps its titles, stats and border at least 11 mm clear of the trim, so a frame that overlaps the print by up to 11 mm on each edge covers nothing but paper.

That overlap is usually called the rebate or the inset, and most frames cover somewhere between 5 and 12 mm. If a listing doesn't say, the mount or backing board that comes with the frame usually does, and you can measure it on a frame you already own.

Past 11 mm the lip starts to reach the printing, and the small map credit along the foot is the first thing to go. What it reaches after that depends on the layout, so check it in the Framed preview. Nothing is cropped from the map itself, which runs to the edge by design.

You can see it before you buy either one. The studio's Layout tab has a Framed preview: set the millimetres your frame covers and the poster is drawn inside it, with the visible print size underneath. The details page shows the same thing at a few common depths, if you want a look before you start.

It is already there. Every file carries 3 mm of bleed on all four sides, and the trim line is the sheet size you picked: 210 × 297 mm for an A4 file that measures 216 × 303.

Ask them to print it as supplied and trim to the sheet size. They should not scale it up to make their own bleed, because the file already has it.

Nothing that matters sits near the cut either. We keep every title, stat and border at least 11 mm inside the trim, so a millimetre of wander in their guillotine costs you nothing.

The exact numbers, if they ask:

• A5: the file is 154 × 216 mm and trims to 148 × 210 mm
• A4: the file is 216 × 303 mm and trims to 210 × 297 mm
• 30×40: the file is 306 × 406 mm and trims to 300 × 400 mm

A landscape file is the same the other way round.

Most home printers cannot reach the edge of the paper, so they leave a white margin whatever file you give them. That comes from the printer, not from us.

The way around it is to print on the next size up at 100% (not "fit to page") and trim down to the size you bought. An A4 poster printed on a bigger sheet and cut to 210 × 297 mm gives you a true edge-to-edge print, with the design exactly where you placed it.

It's for personal use: print it, hang it or give it as a present. You can't resell it or share the file for others to use. The full wording is in the terms.

Nothing. Connect a route, restyle it as many times as you like, come back tomorrow and carry on. You pay only when you want the file or a print.

The digital file is €7, one flat price whatever size you choose.

Prints, by size:

• A5: €15 as a poster, €23 framed
• A4: €20 as a poster, €30 framed
• 30×40: €28 as a poster, €40 framed

The price you see is the price you pay.

Yes. Over €60 in the Netherlands and €75 in the rest of the EU, delivery is on us. The whole order counts towards it, digital files included, so a file bought alongside a print can be what tips it over.

A discount code can't take it away either. The threshold is measured before any code comes off, so an order that has earned free delivery keeps it however much the code then saves you.

Yes. There's a “Have a discount code?” link in your basket, just under the order summary. Enter the code there and the total updates before you go anywhere near payment. A code comes off everything in your basket, a gift you're buying included, but never delivery, and the basket shows you exactly what came off.

One code per order. If you enter a second one it replaces the first, so use whichever saves you more. A gift code counts as that one code, so it can't be combined with a discount code.

Looking for one? Follow us on Instagram (@frameitordidnthappen) and send us a DM, and we'll send you a code for 10% off.

Yes. On the Gift a poster page, choose what you're giving: the digital file, a poster print or a framed print. For a print you also choose its size (A5, A4 or 30×40) and where your recipient will have it delivered: free by hand in Rotterdam, or by post to the rest of the Netherlands or the EU. You pay for the gift, and for a print its delivery. Your recipient gets an email with a code and designs their own poster from any run or route. A digital file they download and print wherever they like. A print they can have in any size and format: the one you chose, delivered where you chose, costs them nothing, a dearer one costs them the difference, and a cheaper one leaves the rest of your gift unused.

A digital gift is the file, at any size. Your recipient designs their poster, downloads it and prints it wherever they like. If they'd rather we print it, the code takes €7 off a print instead, and they pay the rest and its delivery.

A print gift is the print, and delivery to the area you chose. Your recipient can use it on a different size or format instead: a dearer one costs them the difference, and a cheaper one, the digital file included, leaves the rest unused. It doesn't include the digital file as well as the print: that stays a separate purchase your recipient can add themselves. If their own order needs a bigger, pricier parcel, they pay the difference when they redeem it. A cheaper delivery, or one that was already free, isn't refunded. A gift for Rotterdam costs nothing to deliver: we bring it by hand to an address with a postcode from 3011 to 3089, and if it goes anywhere else, your recipient pays the postage.

It's redeemable for 24 months from purchase, after which it lapses. It can be exchanged for a different product, size or delivery area before it's redeemed, by emailing us, and we don't refund a price difference either way. An unredeemed gift can be cancelled at any time for a full refund of what you paid for it, even if you bought it together with something else.

The Netherlands and the rest of the EU, 27 countries in all, carried by PostNL. Every order is checked, packed and posted here by hand.

It depends on the parcel: a couple of A5 posters go through a letterbox, a framed print needs a box, and the fee depends on what your order needs. The exact amount is shown in your basket before you pay, and it's free over €60 (€75 in the EU).

We wrap every print and every frame in tissue paper, seal it with our own sticker and pack it flat in a cardboard book wrap cut to the size of the sheet. Nothing is rolled, so it arrives flat and ready to hang or frame.

A5 and A4 posters fit through a letterbox. 30×40 posters and every framed print go as a parcel, since a frame is rigid and its plexiglass front can scratch.

Yes, and it's free. If your postcode is between 3011 and 3089, the basket offers delivery by hand once you've entered your address, and we bring it to your door ourselves within 7 days of your order.

If your order would otherwise pay for delivery, it saves you the postage, though it can be slower than the post when we're busy. If it already goes free, it's handed to you instead and can arrive sooner than the post.

We ask for a phone number so we can arrange a time or call if nobody's home, and we email you once it's been delivered. There's no tracking link, because there's no parcel.

Prints are made twice a week by our print partner, and we collect them in Amsterdam, check them and pack them ourselves. When yours leaves us depends on the day you order:

• Paid before Saturday 17:00: posted on Monday.
• Paid before Monday 17:00: posted on Wednesday.

So it leaves us between 2 and 7 days after you order. Then PostNL takes it from there:

• Netherlands: normally the next delivery day (PostNL delivers Monday to Saturday).
• Rest of the EU: typically 2–5 working days, a little quicker to Belgium and Germany, and up to a week or more to Greece, Ireland and the islands.

Those are PostNL's own indications rather than guarantees; once a parcel is abroad it's in another country's postal system, and neither we nor PostNL control what happens there.

Yes. You'll get an email with a tracking link when your parcel is posted, and another when it's delivered.

Then we make it right: a replacement or a refund. Get in touch with your order number, and attach a photo if it's damage: the form takes photos, which are attached to the email and not stored.

Until it goes to print, yes: that's the first Saturday or Monday at 17:00 after you order. Get in touch before then and we'll cancel it. Once a personalised poster has gone to print it can't go back on a shelf, so from that point it's the faulty-or-damaged route above.

Not without asking. We look over prints before they go to the printer, and if something might print badly, like a border covering part of your route, we email you a suggested version next to yours. Reply to say yes and we'll print that one. If we don't hear from you before the print goes, we print your poster exactly as you designed it, and nothing else about your order changes.

It's emailed the moment payment clears, and it's on the confirmation page too. If the email hasn't arrived, check spam first, then ask us to re-send the links. Put in the email address you bought with and they'll come straight back.

Yes. Your confirmation email itemises everything on the order, with the subtotal, any discount, and the total you paid. Stripe sends its own payment receipt separately.

For 1 month after you buy. After that the file is deleted from our storage and the link stops working, so save the file somewhere safe.

A faulty file or a damaged print is replaced or refunded, always. What we can't take back is a correct poster you've changed your mind about: every one is personalised to a route, and a digital file can't be returned once it's downloaded. A gift nobody has used yet is the exception: you can cancel it for a full refund of what you paid for it. The full wording is in the terms.

We store what's needed to make your poster and fulfil your order, and nothing else: no advertising trackers, and card details never reach us (Stripe handles payment). The privacy policy says exactly what's kept, for how long, and who else sees it.