— Adam Plouff

Project Folders – Part 1

Common sense tells us to keep a project and its assets organized – especially if we make a living off of these projects. Most people create a main folder, pile in a bunch of files and create subfolders as they see fit. This does create folder for each project, but it rarely has any kind of discernible structure.

Consistency: Aside from the chaotic nature of the ad-hoc folder structure is its lack of consistency. If you have to jump between projects in a day or have to revisit a older project it can hard to adjust to the scattered locations of files without consistent structure. Not to mention having to pass projects to other members of a team. The important thing to remember is that every time you are forced to think about the location of a file it takes mental energy that could be used for creating something. So being a better organizer can actually make you a better designer (or at least give you time to be).

What works for me: over time I found that all my files fall into 3 main categories.

• Admin – documents that need to be referenced
• Assets – images to be used inside projects
• Projects – the files I actually do work on

Proj: I work entirely in Final Cut and After Effects, so those files live within either an AE or FCP folder inside Proj.

If you are a print designer you might consider an AI (or PSD) a project file. Do what ever works for you.

Assets: Images, quicktimes, logos, Illustrator/Photoshop files, etc. Are all assets that are used within my project files.  This is really the only folder that varies from project to project. Some jobs have stills, some have lots of footage. I just create subfolders within Assets as the need arises. But I always know elements live here.

Admin: Anything that deals with the HOW of a project goes in the Admin folder. Scripts, tapelogs, and slates are involved with every project I do. These docs get referenced while working on the creative part. I also keep tape label files in case i need to reprint quickly.

Do whatever works for your daily needs. Just pick something and stick with it. In part two we’ll talk about automating the process to make uniformity much easier.