Guide

Are your books collecting dust in a corner? Time to spice up your books with these three styling tricks

4.8.2025

Translation: Patrik Stainbrook

Books are capable of more than just lying around. Using these three simple tips, you can turn them into eye-catching display pieces, bringing a breath of fresh air into your home.

Sure, books aren’t just decoration. Still, after you read them, they often end up on the shelf, only showing off their dust jacket. But why not make the best of them? With just a little planning, they’ll fit seamlessly into your space and become an eye-catching display piece.

Danish label Muuto revealed how this works at the 3 Days of Design event in its showroom. Here are three tips you can learn from them – relaxed, stylish and anything but dusty.

1. Matching colours

A well thought-out colour concept brings calm to the chaos, drawing all eyes to your stack of books. Yellow book spines with a yellow decorative object on top? Perfect! Nothing screams «I have style» like colour coordination.

Topped off with a design object in a matching colour.

2. Create contrast

Books are rectangular – obviously. And that’s exactly why they work so well with contrasts: something round, organic or structured on top adds excitement. It’s also particularly cool with transparent objects that leave the cover visible while still breaking up the look. So, sculpture or souvenir? Choose your favourite! The main thing is breaking that strict geometry and adding a bit of chaos with your style.

3. More than one use

If pure design objects aren’t your thing, they can always be functional too. A lamp, a vase or a bowl on your pile of books? Why not? It’ll make your stack intriguing to inspect while adding a useful element to your home.

The big question: will your book become a star player or the other way around? Either way, using these tricks, boring shelves and chaotic piles will be ancient history.

Survey

And you? How do you see it?

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Pia Seidel

Senior Editor

Pia.Seidel@digitecgalaxus.ch

Like a cheerleader, I love celebrating good design and bringing you closer to everything furniture- and interior design- related. I regularly curate simple yet sophisticated interior ideas, report on trends and interview creative minds about their work.

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