Have you ever organized your books by the color of the dust jacket?

Having kids means to abandon all hope of even finding a book when needed let alone color coding them in the shelf.

I will admit that such organization is rather admirable though.

No, I’m way too anal retentive for that to ever happen. I tried (and failed) to just have them grouped in genre, but not organized by any other criteria…it drove me bonkers. One sleepless night, my husband came into my office, only to find me reorganizing my books.

I don’t allow myself that kind of freedom…it’s a huge flaw.

Actually, when I had built in shelves put into my office, I organized them by color – for which my boss made much fun of me. But it works, ‘cause I can still find what I want. I remember what most of the covers look like, so I go to that color section.

no, but is organizing your shirts and ties in the closet by color the same thing?

i am guilty of that.

all the white shirts. all the grey shirts. all the pink shirts, all the lavender shirts, etc., with coordinating ties. suits on the end. it’s a color spectrum that is pleasing to the eye.

@charliecompany34: I don’t know if it’t the same thing, but it is a perfect answer to this question! Lurve!

@daloon thanks for the lurve.
i’ve seen movies with people who are obsessed like this. they just happen to be killers and the like. i mean, i’m not a villain, but some people dont know how to balance their feelings and vices.

I actually saw this in a magazine a few weeks ago. I thought it was so cool. My wife said we should do it, but then I would never be able to find anything. She also thinks we should arrange it by the Dewey Decimal System, which she knows. Nerd.

Nah, my books are organized from most to least favourite.

Organizing your books by the colour of their dust jackets has gotten quite popular in the last few years. Most of the design magazines and blogs have been doing that for the last three or four years. I’ll try to pull up some examples for you when I’m not on my iPhone.

My closet is divided by type of clothing and then within that type by colour. My bookshelves are like supermarket shelves; my favourite books are at my eye level.

Probably one of the more popular examples floating around the internet. (2005)

A local artist also did larger scale installation in a book store in San Francisco. (2005)
The piece was called There is Nothing Wrong in this Whole Wide World.
Here’s a Flickr set that documents it.

As for wondering if people would notice, you’d be surprised.
One of my art teachers did this (back in 2006?) in the library.
We were told that we were going to see some of his work.
But we weren’t immediately told what that work was.

Out of a group of maybe thirty students, I was the only one
who immediately recognized it was organized by colour.
It was only one shelf running against one wall. (Not the entire wall.)
But still! How in the world do you not notice something like that?

The teacher and I must have sat there for another good ten minutes laughing
while the other students pointed at random objects and asked if that was it.

@Nimis – interesting! Great links – lurve!!

Y’all are crazy. You organize your books by their vertical size, biggest to smallest.

Colors…PSHAW!

Freaks.

Dare I do it? Oh, I so want to. But I’d never be able to find anything….

@cak Sure thing. Though I feel like I should only get half credit.
The last link is only one picture, not much of a set!

@daloon Brave soul, I wish you well.
In theory, I love the idea. In actuality, I think it’d be maddening.

YES!
I’m visual enough that it would work.

No, I’m not particularly visually oriented. My books are all in alphabetical order by author.

Oh, dear, I was sort of hoping that I would get through life without anybody’s ever asking me this.

At some point I noticed that all my professional reference books had either red or blue spines, so I arranged them all with alternating colors, sloping down from tallest to shortest, on the shelf above my desk. It gives me an unreasonable amount of satisfaction to see them like that. When a few other colors joined the group, I put them inside the overhead hatch so they wouldn’t show.

I’ve done it with our Stephen King books. Our daughter has a habit of rearranging things so it doesn’t last long. All that work for a rainbow that lasted one day!

I love the idea of this, and the newest trend… turning the books backwards (for an all white look). But. I couldn’t handle it in real life. All my books are separated into broad categories (paperback vs. hardback and fiction/pleasure vs. reference) and, within those categories, alphabetized by author.

I am afraid that while I might admire the rainbow that would result, I would never group my books by color. I have divided my books into fiction and non-fiction. Fiction is shelved alphabetically by author (because I remember author names more often than I remember titles). My non-fiction is grouped by subject and then within subject shelved by size.

Or at least that is how it was B.C. (before children).

i did when i owned books. now i have an iphone. kindle and internet all in one.

Hmmm, looking at the links, mine are not nearly so rainbow-like. By far the majority of my books have black covers, followed closely by white (then blue, yellow, green, beige, orange). Purple seems to be the least represented.