Lisa,
All spices are subject to damage by sunlight. Herbs go faster, but pretty much everything will lose color and flavor within a few days of being exposed to direct sunlight. So, I think a different plan.
Mind you, if you could find a pretty matched set, pottery spice jars could be quite beautiful. Heck, I could make them for you.* Smoked glass is also nice, and an effective protector, but good luck finding smoked glass spice jars; I haven't seen any outside of antique shops in years.
The approach I take is to store the jars on their sides, with the opaque lid facing out. This also makes the lids more readable, and allows storing more spices in a smaller area of wall space (77 spice jars in less than 2 sq. ft.):
Total cost here was something like $10 worth of lumber and $4 of paint. If I felt like doing it over again, I'd use copper-plated steel rods for the crossbars (aluminum would be much cheaper, but not as pretty), countersunk into the wood; the above cabinet was made entirely using hand tools, built on the kitchen table, since that's all I had at the time.
Mind you, I also put this on a wall which doesn't get direct sunlight (it's shaded by cabinets).
(* although you'd have to wait 4 months, pay more than you're probably willing to, and use cork-sealed jars since it's not reasonable to put threaded lids on hand-thrown pottery. So on the whole, probably a bad idea.)
