How does your computer filing system work?

[Jason Fraker]

I am not very organized and I am the sole inhabitant of my company's art department, so the way things are filed is totally up to me. I have gotten better over the years, and Spotlights's so great that I don't think filing is really necessary anymore, but I'm curious as to how the more organized of this group files their work.

As far as I know, there are a few ways to do it:
1) Alpha: That is, a folder for each letter of the alphabet
2) Numerical: Filed by invoice/PO number
3) Date: This may work for some people, but not for me
4) AIOP: All in one place. Let stoplight do the finding for you
5) others?

[D-Zine]

I definately do Alpha order.

I'm in charge of the server which is where we put everything and there is a display ads folder then a fold for each letter A - Z. Inside EACH letters folder there are folders for business names. It goes like this:

Shopper>Display Ads> B>Business Name> Ads, Photos, Art
(ads, art & photos are all subfolders in the businesses folder). Gawd I'm so anal...I can't help it.

There is a folder for each newspaper that we produce, then a "business folder" for them that I put all in house files in which I am also rediculously anal about. :D

There's more but I'll stop there before you guys get REAL bored...LOL

[greyghost]

Mine is in Alpha, per client. I have more than one magazine or newspaper that I handle, so they each have a folder, and from there three folders (ads/content/photos) all the advertisers are listed in Alpha order in the ads folder.

[D-Zine]

Haa greyghost - you said practically what I did but in alot less words! Thanks...LOL!!

that's the newspaper world for ya ;)

[Satchel]

Alpha... job number.month.year - job name.

job number assigned by a coordinator.
S.

[TheBluePanda]

Wow.. you people... organize???

Heh. I'm very bad at organizing, which is why I try to keep everything in a digital format.

[colonel5]

I have somewhat of a system, all ALPHA seperated out under the following 4 folders. "in progress", "projects", "printables", & "master artwork"

I've been brainstorming about a better way, especially since I'll be backing it up to our server when we get our new one, I need to have something that the intern, myself, & the general manager can navigate easily.

[Satchel]

Yeah it's so hard to navigate some of the older files that are already burned to DVD - the names are off, job numbers are wrong... but at least they are some what in order. We have two folders too - active jobs and completed jobs... they stay in the active as long as they are - you guessed it, active. The completed stay there for about 6 months then get backed up to save on server space. that's the way we do it.
S.

[Rocketpig]

I create a business folder for each client and most of the time I even manage to put the files in the correct folder.

Sometimes I'm even organized enough to create project folders inside the client folder. Sometimes.

[Silence04]

none of the above...
the jobs that are in development go in one folder on a 60gig server that gets backed up every day, and the folders within are sorted by the name of the project.

then when a job is completed it gets moved to a 180gig Striped Raid server (Read-Only). and its organized by Year (usually store 2-3 years before we burn to dvd), then within the years it goes by job subject (like Magazine Ads, Literature, Websites, Promotional, Vendors...) then within each subject its organized by company name.

sounds ass-backwards, but makes burning to dvd easy cause you can usually fit each job subject on one dvd...

[morea]

Each customer where I worked was provided an 8-digit customer number. Each product (image area) had a specific image code, and they were then broken down into sequence... so it went something like this:

customer #12345678. #10 envelope corner card copy (image code #222) 1st address (sequence #1)

would go into the art drive (F)

F:/12/34/56/78 -> and would be saved as 12345678img222001

if a second envelope was printed with an alternate address, it would be saved as
F:/12/34/56/78 -> and would be saved as 12345678img222002

I wonder if I explained that in a way that made ANY sense...

[FreedomDesign]

Per client, then within a client folder, per Job #

[Kool]

Just dump all your job files in one big ass folder named by the job number, then give each job a new number each time it's reworked. Then dump all the artwork into another big ass folder, make sure to name each peice with a really cryptic name.

I'm just kidding of course but this is the filing system I found myself having to deal with once at a new job :D

[Neuro]

That's funny Kool!

Currently I am working the numeric. I need a better system bc it's not working. I am thinking something like what Morea said. That is where I currently work and it works pretty good for us. Let's just say I am speedy with that number pad to the right.

It's definitely important to be orgainized. Espcially when that client calls and you need to pull something up. You don't want them to have to wait or have to call them back. Just doesn't look good.

[PersonasBinar]

hell it's ALL on my desktop....lol

[Satchel]

I work with another designer and she had a few months worth of newspaper ads on her desktop - IS took her computer to reformat on a day she was out sick, that had to be fun for her to have to rebuild everything... oops!

[PersonasBinar]

I found 20 gigs on a desktop here once.
Not mine...... mine is littered with obcure alaises and screen captures.

[daleharris]

my jobs are sorted by year, then by client name, then by job type.

[style]

i hate a cluttered desktop.... so there is hardly anything on my desktop and that includes program shortcuts...
i do folder for each client, then inside folder for each job.

[Eggles1]

I work inhouse, so I don't have clients as such (just mainly the product managers - we are a dental supply company) and when I started 3 months ago I created a system that involved giving each new job a 3 digit number, followed by a brief descriptive name. I create a folder with that name and number on the computer under a main folder with the title 'Jobs in Progress' (number first). All documents and images related to the job go in that folder, and I also have a physical job bag into which all paperwork associated with the job goes - emails, original Word documents etc. This is also labelled in big red marker pen with the job number, and job specs are written on the front of the job bag.

When the job is completed, I run it through InDesign's Package feature so only the images actually used get collected. I then delete everything else that may have been put into the folder but not used in the final file. I also create a Press quality PDF (as if it is to be externally printed, this is how it will be sent) and put a copy in the Package folder. I also create a high quality PDF without bleeds for storage on a network drive accessible by the Marketing Dept so if necessary they can run a few copies off themselves. When the job is finished and printed I copy the folder over to the server's folder called 'Completed Jobs'. I also burn a copy of the folder including the Press PDF to CD which gets stored in the job bag and archived out the back into a filing cabinet. The only problem with this workflow is that while a job is still in progress, the only copy is on my computer. Some jobs may only take a day, others can take weeks.

So two copies of every project are kept - one on CD and one on a large network drive. Eventually I assume this will have to be backed up as the drive fills. I also keep the package folders on my own computer for a while after completion, as I have not yet found a good way of storing images, and may need to access one I know I used in a recent previous job.

Image retrieval is my biggest problem. Many of our images come from the manufacturers of the products and may be named very cryptically (certainly not by the names we call the products). My predecessor rarely bothered with editing or renaming files so that didn't help. I am getting better at recognising the products, so if I have used it before but can't remember in which project, I will do a search and can usually find it that way. But my best resource is the most recent printed catalogue - I can see the image I want on the page, and I have a copy of each of the files used in the catalogue (nearly 200 pages altogether), so I can usually find the required image via Bridge - fantastic part of CS2. But the system isn't perfect, as it means I can have multiple images of the same thing on the computer - often resized or cropped for different publications - so I really need to set up a system for the 100s and 100s of products we sell, with a way of defining its dimensions, whether it has a clipping path, whether it has been cropped, etc. An overwhelming task. I think I would need at least a week - or a month - to undertake this cataloguing and I simply don't have that sort of time to spare.