Small Board Game Organization

I read about using 4x6" photo organizers for storing small board games, and I implemented the system in December 2023. I bought two 16-count totes to house my collection. The cases solve the problem of having to stack and store non-standard game boxes, and the totes make it easy to transport groups of games. (The system did promise space savings, but only a couple titles I have ended up being smaller.) Over time, I've expanded into three full cases.

John Perdue (BoardgameBarrio on BGG) created inserts for many games, but I needed to make some of my own (see below).

At the time, we owned a black and white printer, and I have to admit these covers would benefit from being printed in color on card stock, as is recommended. I went back and printed them in color when we got a color laser printer.

I found when putting the games in cases that I didn't feel the need to 3D print organizers. There's a collection of 3D printable inserts at Printables, which I've used for a couple games like Bang: The Dice Game and Scout that have a lot of tokens.

Making my own inserts

Because I don't own Adobe Publisher, I imported one of Perdue's PDFs into Pixelmator Pro instead, which split the PDF elements into separate graphical components. I did some font comparison, and I ended up using "Aventir Bold" for the spines and other text. (I later discovered he has published design notes; it turns out he uses Calibri.)

It took me some time to discover the "Replace Color" feature in Pixelmator, so I could properly color code the player count, duration, and complexity. I was able to get almost all the game box cover images I needed from Board Game Geek, the rest came from the web.