Tuesday, September 26, 2006

The Colour of Books

Do you organize your books by subject? Or do you organise them by subject? Or by size?

Boring!
Organizing them by color transforms them from a banal backdrop into a poppy, rainbow-colored focal point. Books organized by color are cool to look at.
Check out this article from the Design Observer for ideas and lots of pictures to show you how you can colour coordinate your library.

Update:

After reading this post LotusReads actually tried this out in her library and it looks wonderful!

14 comments:

Lotus Reads said...

Very cool, Sharon! I'm half-tempted to arrange my books by colour just to see the effect. If I do end up doing it, I'll be sure to send you a picture! :)

starlight said...

size. i'm anal that way. i like seeing my books moving either upstream or downstream smoothly. but colour...now there's a thought!

Spot said...

Ohoho...I know quite a few ppl who'd just die if their books weren't arranged according to height. :)

Personally, arranging by colour is a wee bit too orderly for me. I like mine in stacks...easier to read the spines. Am trying to figure out how to make a vertical bookshelf.

Anonymous said...

right. this'll sound even more boring when i say - most of the books i've got have white spines!

but i'm with starlight, mine's arranged by size.

Anonymous said...

Wouldn't work for me girl. Types of books still take priority when I get the urge to re-sort my shelves. It's usually delineated along the lines of
Non-Fiction/Academic,Literary and Thrillers. Although I was thinking of relabelling my "serious" fare as "Books Sharon Loves" and the Commercial stuff as "Stuff Animah Hates and Would Write Excoriating Essays About".That would put a little "colour" into the sorting wouldn't it hehehehehe....Now where's my scissors,tape and cardboard........

sharanya said...

So pretty! But not that practical, for me anyway - I prefer alphabetizing by author's last name (except where unavailable).

Karen said...

here's someone dying at the thought of books not being arranged according to height :)

i have different topics on different shelves, then arranged upstream or downstream (i like this description, starlight!), preferably DOWNstream so you'd see the front book's cover and not it's back, and then by author, and within a specific author, by sequence in series, if it's serial, or else by publisher (so covers would look alike), and then by colour and size.

when i rule the world, there will be only 3 standard sizes of books, one for texts, one for hardcover novels, one for paperbacks (and all self-help books would be banished), and they would all have identical covers.

;)

Chet said...

I arrange by subject, left to right, tallest on down.

I also arrange by author - the ones who have their own sections in my bookshelf include Maxine Hong Kingston, Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou. Oh, and my giant panda books have their own section, too.

Too tall books are placed flat, with the spine facing out so I can see the titles.

Anonymous said...

I *try* to sort by recent use. Oldest ones eventually disappear, newer ones are right by the door. So if I can remember how long ago that I saw a particular book I can usually find it. And of course the ones I read right before and after will be just nearby :-)

bibliobibuli said...

it's amazing how different everyone is in the way they store books ...

my novels are all aphabetically organized by author last name. my other books by subject. piles of books in the bedroom in stacks by size.

but i'd love to know what my library would look like organized by colour

maybe i could do it virtually on library thing by putting in tags to do with colour and then displaying graphic shelves? hmmm

krishna - i should have a section for "books krishna loves" but i've bookcrossed a couple of 'em!

Anonymous said...

They're all in a pile on the floor, like everything else :) books are for reading not arranging or looking at :) Where do you get time to arrange them ? I'd rather be reading or doing other stuff :)

Kalgrl said...

WWW well it was red dot com.
lol arranged by colour, becaus thats the way the clients remember them...

Anonymous said...

I arrange my books by genre. ;) The shelves right next to my study table are where all my books on writing are while a slew of manga stare at me from across the room ... if I don't arrange them by genre, I'll probably never be able to find my books! ;)

Anonymous said...

Well all the books are on apile on the floor. What I'm currently reading will be on the floor, but somewhere else other than the pile. Krishna should be a writer too, he;s got Sharon and Animah pretty adequately figured out :)