Collections

write_out asked me yesterday where I get the ideas for my Tumblr collections and how I organize them. I thought other people might be interested to know, too, so I'm answering her here instead of in the comment.

When I first signed up for Tumblr, I wanted to use it more like Pinterest and honestly the only thing that swayed me toward Tumblr was that I had a couple LJ friends who were on it. Mostly I wanted it as a way to store collections of the interesting/beautiful/funny/appealing images I found. I signed up in early October 2011 and on October 19, I posted my first themed collection, the first of my (several) Smoking-themed group of pictures (I didn't start posting random images on the days between my collections for a while).

As for how I curate the images, mostly I just scroll through my dash and if I see a particularly intriguing image, I consider if I could build a collection around the theme of that image. Sometimes my themes are pretty vague (like the one for Colors that I did recently), but I try to keep them cohesive without the images getting repetitive or too much like each other. I don't post collections of fewer than 20 images and I avoid posting collections larger than 35. Fewer than 20 just doesn't feel like a worthy collection, and more than 35 takes up too much space on people's dashes.

Logistics of building the collections: I simply like all pictures I see on my dash that fit a collection I have in the works. I like to be building at least four or five collections at a time. Right now I have about ten collections going. Once I decide I've got enough (quantity and variety) for a collection, I go through my likes, unlike the posts (so many little broken hearts!), and schedule them for posting. The Tumblr default time for a scheduled post is Tuesdays at 10am EST, so that's why my collections go up Tuesday mornings. I'm too lazy to type in a different time for each post.

As for how I pick which collection to post, I just scroll down to the bottom of my likes and I look to see what is the the theme of the oldest like that has enough other images of that theme to make a collection. If I have a collection that's been gathering dust, sitting in my likes for a long time without accumulating twenty friends, I'll do a tag search on Tumblr or hunt on Google for appropriate images. I don't like to do that, though. Going through the tags on Tumblr is (for me) a less-than-rewarding experience, and I more enjoy making up collections of re-blogs from people I follow.

So anyway, that's how I make my collections. It's always rewarding to hear if you liked that week's curated theme, so never hesitate to just mention it, even if you don't have anything else to say. It's not a common thing to do on Tumblr, and it's nice to know people enjoy it.

While we're on the subject of Tumblr, here is the post/link to my disordered eating post in case you want to re-blog it on Tumblr.