# Six framed prints

> Six square photographs in two rows of three, each one inset inside its own ruled plate with a mat of the band's own ground around it and a small tracked numeral and caption below, so the wall reads as six framed prints rather than six tiles. The plates run the full width of the band, and at tablet width the three hold before the row stacks into a vertical run on a phone. Includes replaceable example images. States no colour and no font of its own.

Canonical: https://patternpaste.com/pattern/frame-sextet.html
Section: Gallery
Access: Included in Pattern Paste access.
Needs: Requires a block theme on WordPress 6.7 to 7.0. Classic themes and page builders are outside our supported setup. Adaptive patterns use the block theme’s colour, spacing and typography presets; styled variations declare their own colours or type.
Blocks: column, columns, group, image, paragraph
Keywords: gallery, grid, six up, framed, mat, square, portfolio, caption

Promise: Identical markup in every theme.

---

## The signature moment: a hang, numbered, not a grid

Six pictures in a section is the point at which a gallery stops being a
statement and starts being a collection, and a collection wants an order. Every
plate here carries a roman numeral before its caption, I to VI, reading left to
right and then down, so the wall is a sequence a visitor can refer to rather
than six things that happen to be near one another. The numeral is set in the
same 12px tracked caps as the caption and separated from it by a middle dot, so
it costs one line of type and no decoration at all.

The second half of the signature is that the mat survives being multiplied.
Three plates across at 1240px leave each one a little under 400px wide, so the
inset comes down to `spacing|30` and the caption to 12px while the frame stays a
full 1px. The mat is narrower than `frame-quartet`'s and it is still a mat: the
photograph is nowhere near the rule, and the white space between them is doing
the same job at two thirds the size.

**It survives colourlessness** because the frame is a `currentColor` hairline.
`currentColor` cannot blank, needs no chain and no slug a theme might not
define, and follows whatever text colour the theme paints the band with, so the
rule is always exactly as dark as the caption beside it: a fine ink line on
paper in a light theme, a fine pale line on ink in a dark one. The space inside
it is the band's own ground, which is a `base` chain, so the mat is never
painted and never needs to be.

**It survives 390px** because the mat is padding, not layout. Core stacks a
`core/columns` below 782px, so each of the two rows becomes three flex lines and
the six plates become a vertical run of six. Every one keeps its padding, its
rule and its numeral at full strength, and only the number of prints per line
changes. At 820px the two rows still hold three across, which is where the
tighter inset earns itself.

## What it inherits, what it decides

Inherits: every colour (the band is a `base` chain with `contrast` type, the
captions are `role-label` chains falling through to `contrast`, the frame is
`currentColor`), the typeface, and the spacing scale (`spacing|80` above and
below the band, `spacing|60` between the intro and the grid, `spacing|40`
between the two rows and as the gutter inside each, `spacing|30` as the mat and
again between a photograph and its caption).

Decides: the mat itself; the 1:1 crop on all six images (`aspectRatio: "1"` with
`"scale":"cover"`, so whatever the buyer uploads is cropped square rather than
letting six different shapes ruin the wall); the 1240px measure and the
`clamp(1.25rem, 4vw, 4rem)` gutters that make this a full-bleed section rather
than a cramped column; the 34rem intro measure, held by a nested constrained
group rather than a `padding-right`, which on a direct child of a constrained
band gives the right width and the wrong position; and the type proportion, a
12px tracked caption against a 15px to 17px lede at reading size.

Every heading-weight line in this pattern is a paragraph, and every one of them
states its own text colour, so no theme's element style can repaint it to match
its ground.

## What a buyer changes first

1. **The photographs.** All six image blocks include example photographs; choose
   Replace to select an image from your media library, and the square crop is
   already set. They do not have to be shot square, but they should be shot in
   roughly the same light, because three of them sit side by side with only a
   mat between them to excuse a mismatch.
2. **The captions, and the numerals with them.** Each caption is one paragraph
   in caps at 12px with 0.18em of tracking, which is a glanced label rather than
   a read line, so keep it under about 24 characters. If you delete a print,
   renumber the ones after it; the numerals are literal text, which is what lets
   them be I to VI rather than 1 to 6.
3. **The count.** A row is one `core/columns` of three. Delete a column for a
   row of two, or copy one for a row of four, and drop the mat to `spacing|20`
   if you go to four, because four across at 1240px leaves under 290px a print.
4. **The mat.** If it feels tight for the pictures, raise the plate group's
   padding to `spacing|40`; the rule is `currentColor`, so it needs no change in
   any theme. If you want it heavier, raise the width in two places, in the
   block's settings and in the `style=`, or the block stops matching itself.

## Included images

The copied markup includes WordPress Photo Directory example photographs. The
public image URLs keep the examples visible after pasting. Select an image or
cover and choose **Replace** to use your own Media Library files. See
[image credits](/image-credits/) for the sources and licenses. Pasting an image
URL does not import a Media Library attachment.
