Joker Collecting Aesthetics

The organization of jokers by category and subcategory is important to me.  By this I mean categories such as Animal Jokers which I have broken down into:

• Cat and Dog Jokers
• Horse Jokers
• Flying Jokers - Birds and Insect Jokers
• Other Miscellaneous Animal Jokers

I have about eight three ring binders. Each binder has a number of sections in it with no particular organization about the binders...Yet!

My over-arching goal is to be able to look at a joker and know where it fits into the collection.  Also, I think it is more pleasant to leaf through pages of jokers which represent thematically consistent jokers so that people can appreciate the variations on a theme.

But even more important to me than the organization is the creation of aesthetically harmonious pages which fit into these categories.

This page of nine, for instance, from the travel section of the joker collection.  It is built around the ballooning travel theme and includes a number of thematically related spherical objects such as a globe personified as an airplane.  (A globe personified as an airplane? Who dreams these designs up? Is someone making a point about the whole human race being on a trip together?)    There's also a joker with the earth seen from the sky and one with an abstract spherical pattern.

Balloon and Globe Jokers

From the joker bust and head shots section, I have assembled a full page of jokers which I call "Jokers on a Stick", a little like lollypops, popsicles, rattles, or perhaps, like severed heads on spikes.  Notice the little aesthetic touch on the middle row where the two on the outside are both facing inwards.  Also, there are three pairs which are variations on a theme which go down the outside columns.  BTW, I'm painfully aware that my photography and scanning are weak points that should be improved on.  It's just not much fun for me to sit around and scan jokers since the scanner remain painfully slow.

Joker Heads on Sticks

Jumping to another section of the collection, lets look in the cartoon section to a page which all about the Batman.  About a year ago, I had a page that had superheros and I had Batman on the same page with the Flash and Superman. But now, I've grown to where I can have a full page, actually more than a page, which is 100% derived from the Batman world. I find this very satisfying. I recently filled up an entire page with Elvis and another with.....

A few other notes on organization.

How fine a distinction do I want to call it a different joker? Does a tiny size or color difference matter?  What about the very fine print on a joker?   I'm conflicted on how many minor variations on a theme that I will show since it's really really boring to look at pages of jokers that appear identical. Right now, my working system is that I'll treat jokers as different if I can tell at a glance how they are different.