If you guys read my previous blog on File Organization. You will clearly see how unorganized and scattered my files were. I had 133 Transportation graphics. I did the file and pile method where I will pile my files and look for it later. That is okay for an amateur who is doing personal projects for friends and family members. It is not an okay practice when working among professionals and corporate clients.
If you are in the creative field where you are a producer; writer; graphic, and motion designer; animator; video editor; website builder,etc. This blog is for you. I had 864 files of Illustrator Vectors that were scattered out in just one folder that were not identifiable. Out of 864 were the 133 Transportation graphics you seen in the previous blog. I finally got it organized where I can quickly identify and find what I am looking for. Putting these files in categories makes a big difference.
In this picture you can see the preview pane in the left showing the folders I created. Next to the preview pane you can see how I put the 133 Transportation graphics in categories. The folder I created was VEHICLE EXT. Under that category I created sub categories and folders. With vehicles you have to be specific according to their model and weight.
The problem was I was naming them common names such as Cars and Trucks. When file naming the vehicles Cars 1; Car 2; Car 95; Luxury Super Car; I was doing a keyword shortcut so I can search easily search it. When I was trying to find a specific car model. I went from Arkansas to Japan to find it. It took at 10 minutes or more to go find the right car model I wanted to use in a design.
It was frustrating going through a pile of files with the name Car at the end of it to find the right one. I realized it was time to put this vehicle models in categories and be as descriptive as possible. I created 11 folders with their sub categories within that folder. The key to better computer file organization for creative people is the method Category and Find.
The Category and Find method will help you to identify your files easily. You can find the folder associated with those files easily than to find scattered files with no categories. Take an extra three to four hours to organize your files using this method. You don't want to wait to get on team projects and not being able to deliver because of files disorganization.
In my next blog if you are working on multiple projects and you have more than 6,000 files. Be sure to check out my next blog called Projects and Non Projects.
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