I was recently asked about organizing my ornament collection and thought I’d share my systems. I try to keep all of my ornaments and borders in consolidated sections of the studio. Below is the bulk of it, largely in quarter cases and a funky cabinet found at a local shop.

My favorite storage is quarter cases like these. They’re the right size that’s not too heavy to maneuver and I can carry them around the shop to where I’m working.

It’s important to implement systems to manage any collection. As mine has grown, I’ve taken the time to make black and white proof cards of everything, even if I don’t know exactly what something is called (mine is a working shop, not a library.) This is a great intern project as well, as it requires practice with every aspect of printing processes, from identifying, to setting, to proofing on a platen press. These cards become a reference for in-studio use.

Because a new rack for quarter cases is on my to-do list still, galleys are holding the remainder of my collection. As much as possible, I try to run reglet or furniture down the sides of the galleys to keep the ornaments away from the edges that can hit the runners in a galley cabinet. I use the proof cards to label these to make the ornaments easy to find.

The proof cards are also scanned as 600dpi black and white .tif files so that I can use them in digital layouts for clients. I built an InDesign file with a page dedicated to a row of each border/ornament set by size. This has increased the speed of my design work as I can easily see my entire collection at once and determine which style of border/ornament will work best for my current project. Does it take time to do this? Yes. Does it save time in the long run? Absolutely.

I created labels for the quarter cases from these scans; the images are placed on one sheet that I print out on label stock so it sticks to the sides of the cases. It makes it easy to change them if I move borders around. I don’t yet have them organized by style/usage per se, and it wouldn’t necessarily speed up finding them.

These are just a few ways to rein in a large collection of ornament; the takeaway is that having any kind of system is important and helpful because the easier it is to find what you want, the more likely you are to use it. There are many different storage units that work great for managing borders and ornaments depending on how many you have and how much space is available.

The left image below is from Tom Parson’s shop in Denver, where he has a wonderful slanted cabinet with small wood galleys for type and ornament. To the right is one of these wooden galleys of borders from Paul Aken’s Platen Press Museum in Zion, Illinois. He has also has one of these cabinets.

If you have the mother lode of ornament like John Horn in Little Rock, Arkansas, then consider new plastic hardware units for your collection. John labels his with actual proofs of what they contain.

Here is John’s second wall o’ ornament for a little organizational inspiration. #ornamentgoals, am I right?!