Wherever I’ve worked in the past, there’s always been ‘issues’ about structuring client data to make it easy for the Design team to get at and share. An example: Back in the 90’s, I worked for an agency where one of my colleagues method of storing client data was to save everything to his desktop then, when his desktop was covered in icons, save the contents of the desktop in a directory called ‘desktop’ which he’d then keep on his (you guessed it) desktop! When he was away it was a fucking nightmare trying to find stuff if an old client called up.
The rest of us therefore took it upon ourselves to formulate a client drive directory structure which we’d adhere to for every client. Its proved so easy to implement and use I’ve suggested its implementation at every place I’ve worked at since and I thought I’d share it with you and maybe get your suggestions on ways to tweak it or better it.
First of all is to get a private share setup to lock off the rest of the company – you don’t want Chardonnay from HR stumbling into your carefully organised structure and dropping files off left right and centre. Obviously, if you’re implementing this as a freelancer then you’re pretty much safe.
The first level of directories should be the names of your clients. Simply that, nothing else.
Within each client directory you create a new directory for every seperate project you’ve done/are doing/are about to start for that client.
So far, so pretty obvious I suspect. I’d be surprised if most designers didn’t do this. However, the next stage is where the difference lies. A lot of design teams and freelance designers I’ve worked with in the past simply chuck everything to do with that project in the project directory and hence are making life more tricky than it needs to be.
My next level is comprised of four directories; first is the Production directory. In fact, most of the time this isn’t even a directory its actually a shortcut to a corresponding directory on my local web server. As its a production directory, this is obviously where all files that make up the resultant website live.
Next up is a directory called Documentation. In this directory I have a number of sub-directories:
- Content. This is where I place all the textual content that pertains to the project. I also keep a very simple spreadsheet file that I use to track versions of the same file. I would recommend making the date and a number part of the file name e.g. homepagecontent_23_3_05_v1.doc and then if the client sent an update to the content for that section I would create another file like so: homepagecontent_28_3_05_v2.doc
- Technical. In this directory I keep all the details of the technical info I may need for this project such as FTP details, database connection string usernames, passwords etc. I also keep wireframes, workflows and any usability reports in this directory, possibly in sub-directories of their own.
- Correspondance. This is where I keep all formal correspondance such as job spec, the completed brief, client sign-off sheets, invoices, colour specs, font specs etc
Next up is the Source directory. In this directory I create a sub-directory that corresponds to every single source filetype created during the course of the project. So typical sub-directories may be: PSD, EPS, FLA. NB: No outputted flat files must be in here. If they’re outputted files they should be somewhere else, probably the Production directory. Really, the sub-directories in this directory are completley dependant on the project you’re working on e.g. you won’t need a FLA directory if you’re not going to use Flash. The only constant for this directory is the Concepts directory where you store the source files that are used to create the design concepts.
Lastly is the Imagery directory. In this directory there are three sub-directories:
- Stock. In here (obviously) I put all the stock imagery I get whether it comes from the client or whether I’ve sourced it myself. I also maintain a file naming system for my files in this directory e.g. sxc_800_600_72_100891234.jpg which to me indicates that the file came from stock.xchng that its dimensions are 800×600 and its resolution is 72. The long string of numbers is simply the filename as it was on the site I got it from. I also maintain a simple spreadsheet that lists the exact URI of the file on the originating stock site (if applicable).
- Flat_logo. I keep all the flattened versions of any logos associated with the projcet in this directory, whether this is a logo I helped with or whether it comes from an external source.
- Flat_concepts. Similar to the above except these are flattened versions of any design concepts associated with the project. I also insist on a good file naming structure for this directory e.g. aboutus_kl_v1.png which lists the name of the section the design concept relates to, the initials of the designer and the version of this concept.
This structure meets my needs very well and always has. I’d be very interested in hearing your thoughts, how you do things, what improvements you would make etc. And of course I’m well aware I’ve either told you what you already know, or helped you or simply revealed myself as an obsessive control freak.
Here’s a link to an example directory structure based on this document.
Left Brain Right Brain 
Very organised, job numbers for the folders is also fun, oh and I allway add the date in the folder. Your folders are a little tooo complex for me …
Job numbers for the directories is a great idea Tom. Do you think its complex to the point of being too hard to grasp intuitively or just a bit overkill-y?
I don’t think it’s overkill at all. It took me a long time to understand why this is so important. For example, trying to find original stock photography in a folder marked ‘graphics’ or ‘images’ is a bit of a joke. You never know what you’re looking at!
I think I may go the whole hog, and use your structure from now on. It’s much more refined than mine and much more extendable. Thanks.
With this and John’s post today, there are going to be some pretty organised designers out there!
I’m a bit like your colleague – I fill my desktop with icons and files ’til it cannay be filled no more, then I move it all into a folder called ‘Desktop Stuff’. When this is too big, it is moved to the F: drive, where it is placed in a folder like ‘March 2005’…
I suppose I should get a bit more organised 🙂
I guess if you work with it then its not complex, to someone new its kind of hard.
Another issue we have is where the stuff is actually stored, one of the machines has a funny raid system that locks me out when I try to get files over the network. So I end up copying the files im working on over to a drive attached to a wireless router and then onto my machine. Then at some point I have to go onto the machine machine and put the files back in the right place.
So I try to keep my projects seperate from the rest of that crap and burn a disc as a backup.
I’m a sole trader, so basically freelance. 🙂 I’ve always used a fairly obvious directory structure for projects, whether they are for websites or for software. My structure keeps evolving though – your outline is great for websites, and of course that’s what we’re talking about here, but my organisation of project files seems to be more loose and flexible. I guess if I started doing things more in a more uniform way I would get further than I do.
The unfortunate thing really is that I’m also a bit the other way – dragging shortcuts to my Desktop to store later, etc. I’m slowly starting to forge all these sorts of things into one place – becoming more organised. I’ve always thought of myself as quite organised, but there are just times when you don’t have time (or don’t think) to put something where it’s “meant” to go. So, I find it useful to have an “inbox” for various things.
My Desktop tends to be my inbox for Web shortcuts until I clean them up every couple of days, saving them to a local resource directory site I host on my PC. A similar sort of thing happens for my to-do lists. I have an “inbox” where I can sort things out a bit later. Sometimes I’ve found that this really allows you to prioritise stuff and plan things. Anyway, now I’m going off-topic…
I’ve just been trying to rehash one of my messier projects to use the system you described here. It’s fitting quite nicely, so thank you!
One thing I found difficult to “pigeonhole” was specification documents and notes. I guess it’d come under documentation>correspondance – I’ve preferred to create a specification directory under documentation where I put some of the stuff like colour/font specs.
I also find that a “research” directory is useful sometimes for tracking specific articles and tools that are of use to a project. These will often be obvious, but at times I’ve completely lost a Web link or something that was useful and had to look it up again.
A ‘research’ directory sounds like an inspired idea. I usually create a directory in my bookmarks for related links but the trouble with that is that they stay cluttering up your bookmarks long after the projcet is done and finished with so this sounds like a very good solution.
I use a structure not too disimilar to yours. I also have a “WWW” subdirectory within each project that contains the development site – I create a new virtual host for each project in the apache config file so that I can access the development site via a URL in the form of http://www.sitename.dev.
Does anyone else do that?
I don’t Will, but it sounds like a better implementation of my shortcut idea so I’ll be nicking that one ;o)