Lesson 2 – Organizing Your Files
Best Practices in file naming and organizing
There are two basic types of files: The ones you make, and the ones you collect. You are either creating files and saving them to your hard drive or you are collecting images or other files that you may use as reference for your project.
You choose how to name these files and where they are stored on your computer. By creating and using a system that allows you to easily identify files by their name and location, you can become more efficient in your workflow, but even more important, you will be able to easily identify the files years later!
Basic File Naming Strategy
1. Be descriptive
We no longer limited to only 8 characters for a filename. Don’t get to tricky or complicated, choose key words that describe your project. Years from now when looking at these filenames you want them to be easy to understand.Be descriptive so you can search with normal language to find your files later using your computer search tool.Do not use the word “final” in your filename - that isn’t descriptive. You never know when you will have to make another change to a file – so digital files are almost never final.
2. Be consistent
Once you develop your file name strategy, you need to consistently use it all the time for every project.
3.Use lowercase letters only
This is part of our “consistency” concept. Also, when saving files for use on a website – lowercase letters are preferred.
4. Don’t use special characters
Letter and numbers are fine of course, but computers and browsers don’t always know what to do with certain characters and symbols. Spaces are not a good idea since browsers do not like spaces in filename, the better choice is to use a hyphen to separate key words. The internet has learned how to deal with spaces in file names by adding “%20” to replace the spaces. This can cause problems if you are using filename references in your web code. Use underscores or dashes between words like_this or like-this. Since almost every file ends up on the web or on a server nowadays it’s best to nameyour files web-ready.
5. Use dates in your file names
Even though we already have a modification date for each file, having the date at the beginning of a file name ensures no matter where the file ends up that it can always be sorted by date.
6. Use version numbers in files you create
It is always a good idea to version your files so that if you make an irreversible change you’re your file, you can always go back to a previous version and you have to start over. It’s also a good idea to keep all the versions of your project until your project is complete, just in case!
Here is an example of what your file names should look like following these 6 rules:
20161223busd-afa-web-home_v1.psd
Always start with the date in YYYYMMDD format. Then include descriptive key words or easy to understand abbreviations. This means having a project name, company name, client name, job name, etc. just after the date. Then describe the contents of the file itself andadd a version number.Lastly, always end with a file extension. If you do not include a file extension, you may not be able to open the file later if you can’t remember what program you used tomake it.
20161223= date format
busd= client
afa= department (short for “arts for all”)
web=project
home= web page
v1= version number
.psd= file extension
Folder Naming Strategy:
Keeping your files organized within a folder structure can make it very easy to manage and find files quickly. A lot of the same “best practices” rules apply – but the difference is in the “nesting” of the folders for easy management. For Example:
BUSD – Arts for All Microsite (828)*
PHOTOS
STOCK IMAGES REFERENCE
CLIENT SUPPLIED
PURCHASED
HTML
ARCHIVE
LAUNCH SNAPSHOT
ILLUSTRATIONS
PSDS
COMPS
LOGOS
SPECS
NOTES
WIREFRAMES
DELIVER
20161224
20150421
*this example uses the following elements to create the top level folder name:
BUSD = client name
Arts for All =department
Microsite=project
(828)=client number (if you have a lot of clients – it’s nice to have
a client ID – but not required )
1. Be descriptive but short
We no longer limited to only 8 characters for a filename but it is best to keep it short and to the point. There is no limit to the number of folders you can have inside a project folder, but the more organized the better.
Recommendation: Keep a ‘DELIVER’ folder for each project with folders for each time you deliver a version to the client. Use the date or version number to keep these folders organized.
2. Be consistent
Once you develop your file name strategy, you need to consistently use it all the time for every project.
3.Use ALLCAP letters only
This is part of our “consistency” concept and it not required – it is just a suggestion. It is a nice way to differenciate the files from the folders.
4. Don’t use special characters
Letter and numbers are preferred, and use spaces when using multi word folder names.