I hate it & I don't even think it looks good - at least not in your example pictures. I don't mind the last one as much - but the others look like bad modern art, just chunks of color blocks thrown on a canvas.

It is fine for you, I suppose. But for me, well, I am a tad vain. I wouldn't like people to visit and remark that my books are arranged by color. It might lead them to question the carefully crafted illusion that I am an intellectual. Of course, I am not, but I play one in real life and I would hate to have people think I am some kind of color coded aesthete (which I certainly am not). But enough about me. What about you?

I admit I was initially appalled at the visuals of books being arranged by colors and internally railed against the idea. That is until I tried it two years later and found I liked it so much better because of the color and size cohesiveness. I know what my books look like and can find the title easily among its similar color brethren. When I added new books I was surprised that my roommate immediately noticed the new titles in spite of being nearly camouflaged among similar colored spines.

I'm a fan. I know that people complain about not being able to find books, but I find that after I've read a book once or twice, I can pretty quickly remember its spine color and locate it fast. And honestly, before mine were arranged by color, I simply didn't organize them at all (past putting related volumes together), and I've found this to be true of many of my friends' and family members' shelves, too.

In my apartment where I can't change my drab wall color or awful lighting fixtures, the bold color blocks on the shelves really add to the room.

No thanks. I have no desire to live in what looks like a paint wheel.

I love it and I do it. I have waaaaaay too many books and I'm too lazy to organize them by title/author (also, if I got started on that path, I would end up dividing them by country of birth, original language, era in literature, etc.- which I've done, when I had about half the current stock to manage), and since I'm constantly pulling them down and sticking them back in, color just works best. Also, since I've collected different editions from different countries, I can pretty accurately remember all the cover designs. So, it's not only very useful, but it looks neat.

I love it, but I have series of books that have spines in different colours. So i'd have to break up the series to do it and Im not down with that :P

It was kind of fun, and now it can look a little played out. Like anything.

In my opinion it works better with a smaller amount of books. I did this with a small group on a shelf next to my desk. It looks quite nice and I plan to keep it that way. Now if I did it with the 4 or 5 bookcases that are completely filled in the living room...no thanks. From looking at these pictures and past ones I feel it would be too overwhelming for our space. To each their own, though! :)

I'm a fan too. I did something even more rage inducing with our books, I covered them with brown Kraft paper and then wrote the names and authors on the binding with white pen. Shocking, I know, and I don't care if you hate me for it because it looks damn good. I know what books I have, and so what if it takes me a little longer to find what I'm looking for, I see it as a couple extra minutes to look at my beautiful bookshelves and feel happy about the way they look and their presence in our home. Our books are not props, we have read all of them and will read some of them again.

Initially I absolutely hated it. And then I realized that not everyone is absolutely 100% in love with series like I am - particularly ones that don't have the same color spine.

But, a bookshelf that's not arranged by color doesn't have to be chaotic - but perhaps this is just another way that other people wouldn't understand. I arrange my books by genre. Then I arrange them by size. This is actually really helpful as then you can adjust book shelf heights to fit more books too. Now, this doesn't always work out as sometimes I have series where a couple books are in paperback and rest are in hardcover and therefore different sizes, but in general it works quite well - especially as authors commonly use the same publishers who will use the same size books.

It's not quite as chaotic, but for me it's enough organization (because I really just care about genre most of the time).

@REDMAIKO, agree with you there. The examples given above are not the best for advocating this arrangement. Small groups of books or a single bookcase can be fine, but entire walls filled with rows and rows of rainbow books is too much even for this fan.

Not a fan.

What's curious is that, whenever I see pictures of rooms with arranged-by-color books (including the pics shown here), I don't like anything ELSE in the room (furniture, fabrics, flooring, etc.) either... so I guess it's an all or nothing kind of thing.

I think it just feels too planned. Like the books are only there because of their color as opposed to being read and enjoyed. I prefer something more haphazard...

Glad I read all the comments before posting, because I was going to say the same thing as Caseyinto above. Also, unlike the examples above, I don't have an equal distribution of colors. I would end up with shelf upon shelf of yellowed trade paperbacks and cheap black book club hardback editions that are missing the dust jacket. I don't think it would be effective.

That being said, I can see how it would work if you had a more balanced and manageable collection of books, rather than a book hoarder like me. :)

In a Manhattan apartment, anything I can do to reduce visual chaos is a big help. I was surprised as how effectively arranging my books by color did this.

No, it does NOT look good.

The first pic is actually © Craft & Creativity (Helena Söderberg, Sweden, 2009)
(love the libraries, heh:))
Happy Easter everyone! x x x

I'd love to see some examples where the books aren't in rainbow arrays. A block of purple and green, for example, amid a shelf of traditionally arranged books could look really good with the right decor, but I'm not really interested in having a gigantic rainbow be the focal point of my home library.

@JNATHANMILLER - I'd love to see the books with the kraft paper, and how that looks. Link?

Since I wasn't even aware of this concept, this blog is very entertaining as well as interesting. I do like the photo. Just not sure I would ever decide to do this. It has a very elementary appeal. I would have to spend some time thinking about the order of the colors and I am very picky about arranging by height. Combininb the two ideas could be interesting. I think I get more enjoyment out of the process of putting th books in some kind of order than I do out of the result. One more thing to try some day.

i've done it for years, at least since college, because that's honestly how i remember my books. now if i want to find "moments of being" it's in the white part. done. i don't do rainbow order, but do put books in different rooms based on their colors.

Stupid fad. Do you buy the books by the yard?

I have a couple of questions about this:
Where do these people find all these colorful books? Most of my books are brown/white/tan/black.
What do you do if you pick up another pink book but the pink shelf is full? Does another pink book have to go or do you rearrange everything to make it fit?
Or do you buy by color too? When you're at the bookstore, do you say to yourself "my shelf of teal books is looking a little empty, I should pick up a few more"?
I think there are three ways to have perfectly arranged bookcases:
1. You're obsessed with making them look good and constantly "fixing" them whenever you add something
2. You (or your designer) bought the books by color, stuck them in there as a statement and haven't touched them since
3. You have a secret bookshelf in the basement for the mismatched books and you are only displaying the ones with pretty dust covers
The last picture I can relate to though and it looks great.

I; an avid reader who just downsized from a house with 2500 sq ft. to an apartment with 900 sq. ft. Like the idea. I think the colors "POP" more in the white bookcases than the black ones. I had to find new homes for over a thousand books. Right now; until I can afford a Sapian bookcase I am limted to one regular medium oak book case stuffed full. When I buy a new booj; I now have to remove a bookk from my cache. So far it is working and for those who wonder I did buy an E-Reader.

As someone who has a giant bookshelf in a small, windowless room (rental duplex, good times), the shelf definitely felt chaotic and blah before I rearranged it by color of the spines. I had to search for stuff anyways because our previous categorized organization method was very slapdash, to put it mildly, so this at least eases the eyes a bit in such a small, no-natural-light space. Also, I love rainbows anyway, so naysayers can judge me all they want, I don't care.

Very interesting and original! It's great!

It's a cute joke that you see once and that makes you smile - like that sweet stop motion video - but you would'nt take seriously. I don't find the standard arrangement necessarily cluttered, and I really enjoy small pools of color that sometimes just happen. The color wheel arrangement I find forced and visually overwhelming.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4eVmH_9C-0

I have to admit, I wanted to try this. However, I'm dating a librarian who basically reorganizes the books in our apartment out of habit. It looks pretty, but with the amount of books that we have, and how many book shelves, it wouldn't be practical. Besides, he has his corner of political non-fiction and I have my corner of fiction and Anthony Bourdain books :D

i started out with the whole rainbow in one room, and that was fun for a bit, but then i had a beautiful revelation: just use the books that fit the scheme of the room/or add a pop of color! i wish i had a link to show you, but in a blue and green room, use those books along with some greys and then a pop color. use a grouping on a nightstand, a grouping in a shelf, a grouping on a mantle....it doesn't have to be the full-blown rainbow to be organized by color

@HHRI, my books aren't that colorful either, maybe that's why the arrangement-by-colors works. Of the books that are colorful, for example the orange books don't all go on one shelf, they're divided into two shelves mainly due to their sizes. So one shelf is half white and half orange to tan, and the shelf below (which as bigger books) the orange books are on opposite end of their above counterparts and share the space with other bigger white to brown/burgendy books.

And I have two "secret" bookcase; bottom shelf of my console table which holds stack of my Harry Potter hardcovers which are laid flat and turned around so you only see the pages and they hold candlesticks to hide an outlet. The second secret bookcase is my bedside table which have my favorite comfort books to lull me to sleep after a bad day.

@HHRI-- A job in children's publishing lands you a rainbow bookcase really quickly, although there are plenty of non-children's books with colorful spines. Off the top of my head, The Happiness Project is yellow, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is red/orange, Cold Mountain is blue, and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is yellow/orange.

Hate it, hate the kraft paper version, hate the books with their spines facing inward version, hate the idea of buying books as decor (that I hear McMansiony people do -- buying old books they never read just to make it look like they have a library).

I can see organizing books by size if your space is limited, but these arranging by color tactics seem utterly ridiculous -- how do you ever find a book?

Absolutely love the colour coded books. I have them on my shelves and if I were now to mix them all up, I would find it chaotic. Mixed with vases and ornaments to break it up, it looks great.

I love it. I tried it last year and ever since am able to find my books so much faster. I always remember the color of the book!

I think the people who did #2 must have bought all those dusty-rose books just for the color.

I don't know, it just looks like you've decorated with a crayon box or like Rainbow Bright threw up on your wall. I totally get the visual memory thing--that's exactly how my brain works. But it would be much harder for me to find the books if they were arranged by color, I think--I'd have to search through all the blue ones instead of knowing it was a play with a blue cover so I have to look in my section for plays instead of through all the blue books. Personally, I like organizing my books by size and topic, it looks tidy.

In photo #2, the books are wallpaper: http://www.mrperswall.co.uk/all-wallpapers#id=2960&sort=popularity
Though in fact I like it best - the vertical bands of colour, and the bright spotlight-like band just behind the sofa - very dramatic.

It adds too much color for me. When books are organized by subject and/or author, the colors are broken up and read more as neutral. I want other colors to predominate in my home, not those of my books.

I also think it's a trend that is playing out, as someone above said.

Also, just too rainbowy. Maybe ok for a kid's room, though.

@ZENEZIE - lol about your secret bookcase and about turning the Harry Potter books around. I have a stack of books right next to a sofa and the top one is my favorite with a pretty cover with the other ones being turned around so you can't tell what they are. The description of your books actually sounds pretty cool. I might try something like that at home - it shouldn't get overwhelming with my mostly tan books.
@CARLY927 - I have colorful books too (my Alice in Wonderland is white+ pink, Elling is teal, The Hobbit is grassy green), just not the large quantities seen in some of the pictures. If I arranged by color, my bookshelves would probably look more like the last picture.
And I would have to break the habit of arranging books by "theme" (all coffee table books are on one shelf, mystery novels on another, etc).

I don't mind it. I can see where it might be easier for some people to find books by spine color (I do that sometimes). I tried it, once, at my old house. I seem to have far more white and beige books than any other color, and I couldn't get it to look right. It lasted less than a week.

I do keep a small bookshelf of mass market paperbacks turned spines in, in my living room. I found the black and neon spines too jarring for that room, where I want to relax and have the focus on colors I have intentionally added. They are alphabetical by author, and it's very easy to find what I am looking for.

I do it, I love it. It's so much more peaceful. I feel secure enough in my relationship with my books to not worry about how other people perceive my library (if they're not impressed by the sheer size alone, then they're probably not going to be moved by my classification system). I have absolutely no problem finding books, and it actually helps maximize my shelf space, since I don't have to worry about keeping all of a single author's books together or anything. And also, it's my library. If I feel like breaking the pattern and, say, keep all of my Penguin Hardbound Classics together, color be damned, who's to stop me?

I like the way it looks, but it would never work for me. I have too many series with different colors and my mind is just organized to group books by category or alphabet(for fiction). I do organize my clothes closet by color, though,because it looks nice and works for me.

It's not that hard to make book shelves look nice and neat, even when they are full of books of different color. Putting books on a shelf in order by size and pulling the books forward so they are flush with the front edge of the shelf greatly decreases the messy snaggletooth look.

I love it. I find it visually soothing, and as pretty much all my books are large and colorful art/design/history/craft books (my novels are on my kindle) it works for me. Also, I always know where a book goes back into the shelf.

No. Every time I see it, it reminds of a life sized version of Crayon Art.

I did it after seeing it here...and I love it. Makes me feel calm and happy every time I look at it. That said, my best friend says it makes me appear ocd. and I'm ok with that.

I do this because I'm a visual thinker. However, I only have about 2 shelves of colored books, and the rest are grouped as ginormous art history books. In my old apartment, I did rainbow order but alternating on two bookcases on either side of the TV. So it was pinks and reds on one case, orange on the next case, yellow on the first, etc. I grouped items with similar colors on those shelves, but none of them were stuffed full. I had plenty of black shelf to balance it. I think that's the key: giving space for each color to breathe.

There are so many ways to color coordinate books and it looks so much better! They don't necessarily have to be rainbow order to look amazing either. This style is a must for visual thinkers.

I love it! I have it in my loft where my largest bookshelf acts as a room divider for my bedroom and living room. I am so OCD with color that my books actually alternate shelves with sweaters so it goes Red/Pink books, Red/Pink folded sweaters, Orange/Yellow books, Orange/Yellow sweaters etc.. you get the idea. But it's a great way to cohesively use the space to store two totally different items in my place!

So you're looking for a book with a 'bright blue cover' in the blue section? Don't get it. Sorry but if you enjoyed your own books well enough to keep them and shelve them, you would KNOW the title of every one.

It looks like a pantone workshop to me.

I used to do this to my DVD collection before I ripped them all and packed them away. It really messed up few of my friends who asked me to please remove the eyesore. Some visitors liked it though. :)

I think it looks fine, if you want to organize books like this, but it would drive me crazy. I tend to have a lot of books by the same author, and they generally have different colored covers. I really want to be able to go to a shelf and find everything by one particular author.

This reminds me of a few tiny libraries in some of the colleges at Oxford University where the shelves are arranged based on the size of the book. Teeny tiny books lined the top shelves, and large leather tomes were stacked along the wall on the bottom. As a librarian, I can't even begin to explain why your number one defense (it can be practical) is incorrect on so many levels. Also, it's embarrassingly obvious that the person who owns this collection doesn't actually read books and possibly even purchased books based on their color. However, if you're looking at it from a design perspective, it's effective. It does serve as a beautiful and colorful "wallpaper," although ridiculously expensive for what it is!

I love the color coded books. The way I've done it, however is breaking it down into sections so all of my cookbooks or other food/health related books are all in one bookcase and color coded within that bookcase. Then, all of our art/craft/photo/design or hobby related books in another shelving unit and again color coded. This allows me to at least be in the right theme of books so I'm not looking through 50 blue books for that one I'm looking for. It works well for me since I am a visual person. I remember what a book looks like almost 100% of the time, but I cannot remember authors and sometimes not even titles!

Also, I've never had anyone call it an eyesore. Everyone loves it. And, I'm often impressed people even recognize a detail like that in a small bookcase like mine since it's not a wall of books like you have pictured here.

I also prefer it color coded on a small scale. Maybe even if you reverse each shelf so the first is red, orange, yellow, green blue and the next shelf goes from blue to green, yellow, orange to red and so on with each shelf. This could make for a stunning pattern with the yellow straight down the middle.

I like having color coded books in different places throughout our loft. It allows pops of color everywhere. I can see how this would frustrate someone who is not visual thinker.

I'm a librarian. This makes me want to cry and shake my fists.
I can completely understand wanting your bookshelves to present a uniform appearance, and I have no problem with recovering books or adding color-coordinated dust jackets (as long as the books are properly labelled.) In the case of recovering, though, they'd still be organized in some sensible genre-based or alphabetical system. Arbitrary placement by color makes NO SENSE unless you don't plan on finding most of the books ever again.

I used to think it looks cool the first few times I saw it but in small scale. Whole walls full of colour-coded books look a bit off...

I have to admit that it's tempting. I already keep all of my teal and orange-spined penguin books together. But the overwhelming majority of my books have blue spines - a lot of law books & journals. So if I did this I would have a HUGE blue section and I feel like this would throw off the effect.

Anytime I see this, I think: Zooey Deschanel redecorates Ikea.

This is a nice post, but I think the only real point of debate is whether or not it looks good.

And in my opinion, it doe not.

I actually have been thinking about doing this as a new in Spring thing fling. After seeing these photos, I think I'm going to go for it. I just don't think my books are as colorful.

Ugh -- this again? It works if (1) you're VERY visually inclined; (2) read infrequently; and (3) never need to repurchase a book (which may very well have changed cover color). But to organize hundreds of books, including series or collections, it's just moronic. As I type this, I'm sitting next to my collection of Believer magazines, which alone would be scattered like autumnal leaves if I tried this.

Plus, I'm with those who do not find this attractive at all.

If a decent-sized library really seems visually chaotic (a point with which I also disagree), I do think it makes sense to recover books. Or, better yet, use bookcases with doors (or heck, even a curtain would work) to enclose the books (which has the added benefit of keeping dust and light away from the books).

Honestly, this would work best for me. I can always remember what the spine of a book looks like, but have a hard time recalling exact titles or authors. The only thing that keeps me from doing it is that I like to have books in the same subject together (i.e. craft books, sewing books, parenting books, history books, novels, etc.).

As someone with information intensive hobbies (cooking & brewing), and I'm finishing a PhD, and I also read a lot of nonfiction for pleasure, a large percentage of my books are reference books. I also worked at a library for a time. This also means that I revisit things frequently.

So, I keep books around for a purpose other than decoration, or simply to show "I read this once".

My wife and sister in law like to organize books this way. It drives me fucking crazy, and on a scale like the first pic, it looks ridiculous.

If you really want to do this, then just make your own book jackets and keep them in a functional order (of which there are several).

I don't think it looks good - it looks like a rainbow threw up on your bookshelves.

Wow, it sounds like a lot of people take their intelligence (or perception thereof) seriously!?... I was like many and used to organize them by category then author, more out of my natural inclination to put things in the right place than as a purist...

In my new place, I decided to change it up and organize by color... I'm really enjoying it! It's a nice change, and I'm not entirely committed to keeping it this way forever, but your home should be fun!! However you organize it, if you enjoy it then it's all that matters...

Oh, and not finding my books instantly lets my enjoy a few seconds of browsing titles of other books I do love and intend to keep.

I am a librarian as well and while this looks pretty in a moment, it's just not solid or practical. Most of my books are not colorful spines and it just looks too contrived. Book arrangement is just so personal and for me it's about genre, pairing up authors and subjects. Organizing books reminds me of the personal relation of organizing records - ala the scene in High Fidelity - crazy personal.

I do organize our children's books based on age range, then size.

I'm firmly on the 'books are functional and thus should be organized by library categories' (genre, then alphabetical) ....but I could see myself having an OCD day and covering every book with colored paper (the colors assigned by category -- eg, non-fiction is white, fantasy is blue, etc) and thereby having a color-organized book wall that doesn't piss me off.

I love this, and I did it in my apartment until my boyfriend complained that he couldn't find anything. I thought that was very surprising, because I can find them much easier organized by color than organized by subject or author (which is how they are now). I'm a visual person and more likely to remember what a book jacket looks like than I am to remember who wrote it. I find that, now, when I'm looking for something, I still go to the proper shelf and think, for example, "Red spine, red spine, red spine," than to look for the author and title on said spine.

Well, I like the idea. BUT - in reality, I don't even think organizing my books by color would look good. We homeschool 5 children and the books are a mess. But we love them. LOVE them! Looking at them right now, very few have bindings that I would actually consider attractive... lots of maroons, burgundy, pale yellow. Not my favorite colors at all. Oh, well. I'm over it. The mismatched and completely unstylsih bookcases are a small price to pay for all they add to our lives.

oh, and we organize by genre. and some books have to be on high shelves... my 7 year old could read nearly all of them, but she isn't quite ready for Mallory's content, yet :)

My then-husband and I did this over 30 years ago. He's an artist and consequently very visual, and I was literature student who did not think it was practical (though it looked great and was oh so avant-garde and original at the time.) Anyway, I quickly got used to it and never had trouble locating books by color. Many years passed, until finally I had some beautiful and huge custom bookcases made, which forced me to reorganize everything. I decided to group roughly by subject and within those categories by aesthetics -- but not specifically by color, just by whatever books (and pictures and various items) looked best near each other. Less attractive books were banished to another bookcase in a more dimly-lit hallway. From an artistic standpoint, I like the new system just as well as the old, and after a short period of adjustment, I have no trouble finding whatever I am looking for. And I enjoy tweaking the arrangement by adding new books to the mix and relocating older ones. My bookshelves are one of my favorite things about my house; they give me both intellectual and aesthetic stimulation.

Why do we have to keep rehashing this subject? Just make a poll and no comments. We already know people staunchly defend their own method, and no one will be convinced the other is better.

We do a "lite" version of this with our large built-in bookshelves. Each shelf gets a category (or 2 categories), and then the shelf is color-organized. So, it's still easy to find a book (because you can immediately narrow down which shelf it is on), and I have a good memory for what color all the books are. It is MUCH more visually calming than having the books alphabetical by author, but not so COLOR CODED *BAM* that it takes over the space. Lots of people don't even notice it unless it comes up in conversation, though design buffs often notice it right away ;-)

"No, this post isn't intended as an invitation for a full-on throwdown in the comments section (entirely)."

lol, cute.

Having worked in a elementary school library for a number of years, here is a story I tell young library patrons (supposely this is true): Mr. Dewey, of the Dewey Decimal System, invented his subject-based method of book arrangement because one day he went to his local library to find a book on dinosaurs, and discovered that all the books were arranged by color. Naturally, it took him forever to find what he was looking for, and he was inspired to find a better way to arrange books on shelves, based on subject matter rather than color. I figure if it's good enough for Dewey, it oughta be good enough for me! :)

I love the way it looks, but I need my books organized differently. Each series together, and by genre. My books share a shelving unit with a rather large salt and pepper shaker collection which is not organized by color, but rather by size (with some displayed by "subject matter"). It would look a bit off, to my eyes to have the top and bottom halves of my shelves to be so drastically differently organized.

I really need to downsize my books. If anyone wants, I'll be happy to provide a list of available color options :)

Sometimes the colour organization is actually practical. As a student, I have a number of cheap translated books from Penguin Publishers, which are all the same general height AND colour (black). The same thing seems to go for the cheap photocopied old translations (~1800s) from Chapters -- all the books are the same height and have the same yellow cover. I find that quite often, similar types of books have similar colours, so it can be very easy to organize this way.

I think this post is kind of funny. I don't get all the controversy. I'm far more traditional and conservative in style than most of the design features in Apartment Therapy. For goodness sakes, I subscribe to Traditional Home. I've never been particularly drawn to the color-coded look seeing as it leans toward the modern and bright-hued.

But one rainy day, I decided to color code the books in our library for kicks. After all I could return it back if it was weird looking. We don't have the vast amounts of books in the photos, more like 6 large shelves, so it was a quick to-do (30 min) and I don't have difficulty in locating anything. I have to report that the result wasn't as garish or offensive as I thought it would be. For our collection the colors have a softer gradient. Interestingly enough, it's the second most complemented feature in our home. That's the reason I haven't returned it back to its original state.

Ironically, for being stylishly conservative, my two most complimented design features are more controversial...the first is having white marble counters, which after 4 yrs have held up gorgeously (seal twice a year!)....and these silly color-coded books! Go figure.

I organize by size. I know which books are tall, I know which books are small.

if you don't put them in rainbow order, it looks better. I LOVE my color coded book shelves! It looked totally chaotic before I rearranged them last year. I get SO many compliments. To answer an earlier question @HHRI: I have other bookshelves in other rooms in my apartment that are not organized by color, so I can easily just put any new books there. Has anyone else noticed that green books aren't as common as any other color??!

I'm not sure the first point in this post could even be considered an argument. Visual people might have an easier time navigating where books are when they are arranged in a completely nonsensical way, but I can pretty much guarantee that even for very visual people, unless you have a legit photographic memory, this is simply not a good way to organize books if you have a lot of them and you plan to use them. If you want to loan a specific book to your friend it, I feel pretty certain that, visual person or not, it will always be easier to go to the section of the shelf where you keep all of your travel books or all of your classics or all of your field guides and skip to the part of the alphabet you know it's in, than have to browse through the general area you think it might be at and pick it out based on the cover.

I mean, I don't care how other people arrange their stuff really, but I assume people who put books in rainbow order have accepted the fact that by doing so, they are pretty clearly communicating "these are just for looks." I don't really find anything wrong with that, though.

I'm an artist and "visual" person. I LOATHE color coded book shelves. As a textile and graphic designer, I find so much beauty in the haphazard disarray of an unorganized library. And the allure of a book undiscovered, or forgotten. Mystery. Or the mystery of finding the mystery section.

I am kinda sort of okay with this. But there are a couple problems with this completely. First, thinking "visually" means you can remember where something is because of its placement and so it wouldn't matter if it where arranged by color. Second, do people actually have collections of books that are made up of such a wide variety of colors and that can separate so nicely into color schemes?

Ah, no. It doesn't look good if your home is not focused on primary colors and the color wheel. While books may be "things," unlike vases of other stuff, they are not design elements as their basic function. And frankly, it just looks too much like junior high school (oops, I just gave away my age) middle school girls how are also focused on rainbows and unicorns.

I actually like this and have done it in my own home. BUT, it works for me because I remember a book by its color and what it looks like, not the title.

Gave away my books and got a kindle.

Reminds me of that old cartoon where Rosie the Riveter picks up the 'child psychology' book and spanks her kid with it. It sorta expresses that one doesn't 'get' what books actually represent.

Unless of course there's a bird on it, put a bird on it and it's suddenly ok.

Way too OCD. It's like Monk's personal library.

Who the hell am I to tell someone the way they shelve their books is wrong?

Seriously. I want to know.

Do they like the colour way? Do it. Do they need to have it organized by subgenre and author and series? Rock it. Are they like me and loosely organize by some unnamed order? Brilliant.

I don't care. All that matters to me is that person likes books and I will happily browse their bookcase to see what they're reading, and see if there's something I might like too.

I think it's utterly ridiculous that the way I prefer my own books to be shelved should have any meaning or influence whatsoever on anyone else.

HATE IT.
Books are my friends. I don't sort my friends by color.
Visual people like this? I would think truly visual people would like books in alphabetical order because most of us always remember are ABC's. I couldn't tell you what color the book I'm currently reading is but I could tell you the title and author!

@finnlay128: I like the cut of your jib. You are so normal and humane. How did you end up here , anyway?

It's downright ugly.

@williamsweyr- So now I'm a book bigot? : /

@finnlay128 - Yes!

I don't understand why people are so angry about this! If you like it, do it! If you don't like it, don't do it. If it really offends you, don't visit anyone who might possibly prefer to have books arranged by color, lest your poor retinas be assaulted.

After reading all the comments I'm tempted to make my own book covers all the same color and organize strictly by genre, then series, then alpha by author. If not alpha by author, by size.
I never realized this would ever be this topic could be so divisive. The weird thing is, I can see everyone's points. Well, almost everyone's.

Hate it. Doesn't look good. It is unpractical. Makes it impossible to find the book you are looking for unless you happen to remember the color of its spine. Who remembers the color of the spine when looking for a certain book or author? Color-sorted the authors get all mixed up and spread apart. Not good at all. I sort alphabetically by author for most books except the coffe-table ones that because of their size need other ways of storing and the technical or reference ones (those are kept for themselves in other bookcases).

No, I'm not convinced. From a visual standpoint, it looks intensely affected. Seriously, someone has the How to Speak Italian book in the white section, the maps of Rome in the blue section, and the Italian city guides in the orange section? Are the suitcases also in three different rooms? When I want to look up a word, the Webster's dictionary is in the red section and the Oxford dictionary is across the room in the black section? Absurd.

In my book collection, I have approximately 600 poetry books, not even counting any other subject. Some of the collections have normal-sized spines, but most are less than an inch. How on earth would I ever know which was which if they were arranged by color?

As for that travel book with the recipes? If the recipes ARE going to be prepared, it goes with the cookbooks. If it will be consulted mostly for future travels, it goes with the travel books. And keep those groupings helter-skelter if you please, but you'd retrieve them a lot faster if they were alphabetized.

What's next, a color-coded pantry? The brown rice is with the brown foods, the white rice is on another shelf with the white foods, and the jasmine rice is in a third place with the yellow foods? But horrors, it's in a green box! What to do?!

@Horror Vacui - probably came here looking at something shiny, like the smallest coolest contest. ;)

I have found though that the comments, sadly on the contests entries too, are getting into a lot of the 'ugh, I don't like /hate that' territory, and people are forgetting that these are actual homes they're commenting on. That's actually one of the main reasons I talked myself out of entering this year.

@LindenTree, agreed! And I've never even thought of not going to a mate's house because of how it was decorated. Now, if it was unclean, that's another matter...

Nothing looks more idiotic than color-coded bookshelves.

If you remember your books best by color, arrange them by color. If you remember them best by author, arrange them by author.

Color-coding wouldn't work for me; my books are arranged by genre, then author or date of publication (the fate of working in too many libraries). But I do sometimes look for that "small red copy of Hamlet" or the "big brown dictionary," so I can see how colors might work better for some people.

If you like something and it brings you pleasure and it's not hurting anyone else, what's wrong with it?

@ JUKESGRRL Um ... I colour code my pantry and my fridge...

I can't help it. When I put washing on the line, I colour code it. It's automatic and I've always done it.

When I shop, I put the same colours side by side in the shopping cart.

When I take laundry out of the drier I do it in colour order.

My iPhone's icons are in colour order.

I'm a sad case :)

I have a lot less books than the examples above, but I did something similar:
http://itsagoodhouse.blogspot.com/2012/02/office-update.html?m=1
Not so much a rainbow, more like blocks of color...

My books are currently roughly organized by Dewey Decimal system (I would love to actually have the numbers on them), but I'm thinking of trying organizing by color in my office. I'm pretty visual and find I look for the books by spine color anyway, especially within subject categories. This was a huge problem when the bright orange spines of my two favorite cookbooks faded in a sunny kitchen - I can't find them now!

Color coded books is like styrofoam rubbing together for my brain. I am a very visual thinker and will totally remember a book by the cover design, but I absolutely cringe every time one of these rainbow bookshelves is posted.

I rearranged my books by colour recently, and, surprisingly, I am pleased with the results. I don't have many books (no more than 200 - I don't tend to keep novels after reading), and the small blocks of colour on the shelves are very restful on the eye.

Yikes. People are so passionate about a personal design decision in someone's own home. Some of my best friends don't color block their books, while I do. We can all live in this world together. They don't come over and call my books ugly and I don't go to their place and rag on their collection. The truth is that it is not a "fad" it has been happening for years and for those of us who read a book once and don't read it again, it is a good way to have them around and keep it simple on my eyes - my eyes which appreciate the color blocking. Ease up folks.

I really don't understand how saying you don't like something and why needs to lead to attacking other people, or calling them "idiotic" or implying that they don't actually "read" their books, they just use them for "decoration." Is it because you're hiding behind a computer screen, or do you have such bad manners IRL, as well? :(

Haha. There are a lot of people judging books by their covers here, to speak literally and figuratively.

Yet another librarian here, although I also have an undergrad art degree and consider myself very visual.

My home library is organized by topic, and a bit by size. It's not worth my time to alphabetize, and I can go to the "gardening" shelf and find exactly what I'm after in a couple of moments, so my system works for me as other systems probably work for other people.

On my desk at work is a poster someone on staff printed from the internet. It says: "It's a green book with a flower on the cover? No problem. Because that's TOTALLY how we organize this library." We think it's hilarious, because some of our apparently "visual" patrons actually describe things that way and hope to find them here in our ~100,000 books! Sometimes miracles are wrought, and with enough pumping for information we actually find them, but NOT with only this to go on!

By the way, I don't consider books what stand neatly upright to look "chaotic" no matter what the colors of the spines. Your mileage may vary.

I LOVE it! (4th picture is my favorite!) I have been doing it for a while and it makes me smile every time I look at my bookcase : ) I didn't even think this was something that would be so disposed until reading this. I organize my closet by color too - to me, it makes everything so much easier to find. Not to mention its fun to look at : )
It seams to me that people are over thinking this. Pinks with pinks, blues with blues, and whites with whites. Thats it! Fun and functional - for some anyways : )

This is one trend I will NEVER get. The whole style makes me want to throw up in my mouth.

I find books and bookcases full of them are the most challenging design element in a home; they provide a lot of visual clutter and colors that hardly match any decor colors you have. It doesn't really help I live in a tiny place; we have 5.5 full bookcases in a 550sqft apartment. We arrange by size to get the most books in a bookcase, so in our current place no color arranging. Honestly, I think color arranging could work, really depending on amount of books a color. But living in a paint swatch...I don't know... Ideally I'd have a library in my home to keep the rest of the spaces serene and light. Or, putting them in a hallway....well I'll keep dreaming (:

I love the idea that a book is an object, and think it adds a lot to the look of a space, but I prefer the way that a heterogeneous bookshelf adds texture and keeps things from looking too neat, without actually being untidy.

If color is how you find books, good for you. As a lifelong bibliophile, I am not nearly as bothered by this question as by the suggestions that sometimes appear on AT to chop up old books for art projects or party decorations. Sort of like proclaiming your status as an animal lover by mounting heads on your walls.

I think a lot of the images I see online are a bit much - who has that many books, all being that colorful?!?

That said, this is how my books are organized. Professional books are kept separate, and cookbooks, but the rest of my books are all grouped together by color. It looked really chaotic before, but now it looks much more deliberate. All my books fit on three 3' shelves.

Although they are beautiful, I don't understand the motivation for keeping an enormous library of books when space is at a premium. I read a lot, but never seem to hold on to books unless they are all-time favorites (I seldom read books twice). Once I've read them I like to pass them along or donate them.

- oh and the most important reason they are kept like this is because, as others have said, I don't always remember the author or the title, but I can always recall what the cover looked like.

I love the way they look and would love to try it myself sometimes. I'm good with covers but not necessarily authors sometimes. But I'm immature as all get out at 12:30 AM and laughed at 'dutch oven'.

Likey!

I think that this picture is a bit OTT. But frequently grouping book by colour means grouping like books, or those from the same publishing house. I.e what can look better than a whole pile of orange Penguin Classics all together?

I like this for staging, if looks great in a lot of photos, but for real life, not so much.

Our books are either on the bedside table when we are reading them, up to 10 books and a few magazines each, or if we see us reading the book again in a shelf in the basement, with around 175-200 books or so, if it is something that we are not going to read again it goes to a charity shop. The kids books are in the kids rooms and cookery books in the kitchen.

I organize my husband's and my 400-600 books this way, aside from his row of 15-20 professional programmer books that live by the computer(s), and the cookbooks in the kitchen (organized by size so their tops form a series of level surfaces upon which I can set things down for a second).

And yes, I'm a visual thinker so it works. In fact it goes beyond books, to where I have a visual organizing style. That frustrates me about Apartment Therapy: whenever they feature organizing how-to's they teach you to hide everything. But just as people have different learning styles, they have different organizing styles. If you always find yourself reverting to a spread-out clutter that "works" in an ad-hoc way, you might need a visual organization plan where everything is in its place but you can see it. It may look cluttered but to me a functional system is beautiful.

And to those who wondered, when I have too few red books for my shelf, I put in a red vase or something to fill space. And when my greens overflow the shelf I have a nice little chunk of green to put on my desk or windowsill. And to avoid rainbow-ness, my books are arranged by warm, cool, black, white and tan with mixed/patterned colors and series absorbed into the larger color block scheme.

Hmmm, well, since the auther states: "I'm just feeling feisty today, and decided that it might be fun to play the devil's advocate on that most controversial of design decisions: organizing books by color." then it actually is a sort of invitation for "a full-on throwdown in the comments section (entirely)." Haha.

Anyway, as far as appearances go, I do not like rainbows as color schemes or as a design choice, some people do. That's pretty much what it boils down to, right?

As far as organizing goes, I am an artist and very visual thinker, but arranging by color does not work for me at all. If it works better for some other people, own it!
I like my artist books all together, cookbooks, fiction, etc, especially if I'm cross referencing, and I have a decent amount of books, so it's better(faster!) if they're all together by category.

Sooo, in summary, overall I think this situation comes down to appearances first, unless someone legitimately and truly has the type of mind that can find books purely by color.

And, last but not least, IMHO, while I love real rainbows in the sky, otherwise I think decorating with rainbows is great for children, and maybe public spaces with a lot of pass through traffic. It's a bit simplistic for me, might be fun and/or whimsical on first glance, but would not create the enviroment I'd like in my living space. I would not diss friends if this is how they choose to decorate, but this is a public forum asking for readers' opinions.

I find that books, when their colors are all mixed together and not color coded, feels peaceful and serene. When I look at the colors here, it's like BAM! I'M NOT BOOKS, I'M THE RAINBOW!

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder- or as my dad would say "beer holder"- I love it- I''ve always organized my closet this way and as a lover of color- just another way to use what you've got to make the place pretty ;) We'll see if I do it or not though....

There is never a good reason to organize books this way. It always looks awful and makes me think the person never actually reads the books they buy.....which is nothing but sad.

I won't likely ever arrange my books by colour because of the way I prefer to access them, but I think you could have it both ways if you arrange the books by whatever method then make coloured covers for them. It could even help by having the various subjects colour coded so you'd know a blue book was always one subject, red another, etc. That way you could add some fancy schmancy patterns too, maybe even make an overall pattern if all the books are in order. You could add the titles and authors on the covers, either computer printed labels or fancy calligraphy or what have you. Too much work for a huge library but maybe not so bad in a smaller collection.

I think it looks cool. I don't have enough books to do it myself, so I wont, but if I did, I would :)

Frankly, as a bibliophile, I find this idea to be rank heresy. I suppose as a designer I could see it working in certain spaces. I've seen the brown paper approach before, and while it can look appealing, few people have the patience to write all that down! Especially someone with as many titles as I have. I have my books arranged by subject matter, which works well for me and my ever-growing collection. I'll leave the arranging to someone who has the time.

I admit to the books-as-objects approach, although I mix up the color and stack by size. Now that we buy all of our read-once books e-style, only the really good ones make it through the door in paper.

Yeah, I used to be a hard-cover forever kinda gal, but we had so, so many books. Maybe those mansion people got our used ones for their faux libraries?

Wow, you guys must be really running out of article ideas. I can't remember how many times I've seen this hashed over, but it's certainly not fresh news....

Here is my bookshelf. The colored books are the collection of the most impressive works from the world literature. These books were published in the USSR from 1967 to 1977. There are 200 volumes. They were presented by my parents and I like how they look ordered by color. I think people who draw conclusions about a person by how he placed the books are wrong.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rus_tam/7552085152/in/set-72157625503215789

I am way late to this party, but I just tried arranging my books by color. It really does look more organized. Also, because I tend to have certain authors in hardcover and others in soft cover, it's gotten rid of blocks of height and made each shelf look more balanced. I live in a small place with lots of art, and was on verge of covering everything with kraft paper so it would look less messy. This is way easier and achieves the same purpose. Also, everyone who is saying their books aren't colorful might surprised. I thought the same, and while I do have four shelves of black, I also have an entire shelf of yellow and and entire shelf of purple/pink which I was not expecting.

I think it looks good and my books aren't organised in any way, so I might as well arrange them by colour.

I did it, and I like it. Next, cookbooks in the kitchen! See how my book look here: http://theyearoflivingfabulously.com/2013/05/07/books-as-design-organizing-books-by-color-a-controversial-subject/