The simple way to organize your folders.
There's an endless number of reasons you'll want to organize content a certain way.
But that doesn't mean all folder structures are sound. Some are naturally better than others.
First, I'll tell you how I organize my documents, photos, videos, and archived projects. Then, I'll share some best practices to follow in case you need to modify anything for what you do.
If you read nothing else, though, the key principle of folder organization is to keep the structure as simple as possible. You should be able to easily direct someone to what they need over the phone, even if this is the first time they've seen the folders.
Pair this with a straightforward file naming convention, and you'll be miles ahead of anyone else.
Organization Frameworks.
Different types of content require different organizational structures.
So, instead of a one-size-fits-all structure, here are a few frameworks to start from, depending on what you're organizing.
And the main types of content you'll need to keep organized as a creator or marketer are:
Documents
Photos
Video
Archiving
You should be able to fit other content into these or take bits and pieces from each to build whatever else you need.
Organizing Documents.
Here's the top-level structure I use for organizing my business and client docs. You can set up the folders within these however you want, as everyone does something a bit different, but I'll share a bit of what I do, too, so you get an idea.
Every file should have a home, you don’t want to let anything become an unorganized catch-all.
00-Admin
Admin is for client and vendor contracts, project estimation templates, registrations, and expenses.
00-Operations
Operations has process docs and templates along with a subscription tracker.
00-SuperAdmin
Super Admin is for banking and legal documents. If you have a team, this folder is only for the owners and anyone who helps manage the finances.
01-WESJONESCO
This brand folder has all your company branding, like logo lockups, letterhead, people photos, reels, case studies, and website copy.
02-Marketing
The Marketing folder contains all your marketing materials, like social assets and blog posts.
03-Projects
Sometimes, you need to treat an internal project like a client project, so those go here.
04-Products
If you sell your own products, you'll save and manage all of those assets and documents here in the Products folder.
05-Clients
All client work goes here and should be organized by date in their own Client Folder.
06-Resources
Resources are any creative asset or business guide. For me, it's a lot of photo presets, video LUTs, graphics packs, and some SEO and writing guides.
MISC
MISC is for things that don't have a home yet or only need to be saved for a short period of time. I don't treat this as a long-term storage folder, as it would just become a mess. So, it's more of an interim landing pad for things I don't know what to do with yet. And then, every so often, I'll go through and either move things to where they need to go or delete them if I don't have a use for them.
Also, I put numbers in front of these so they're organized in the order I like. If I didn't include the numbers, they'd be arranged alphabetically, and that would be fine, but not how I'd like them.
Organizing Photos Folders.
While I use Lightroom to catalog and edit my photos, there are a few other programs people use to do those same things. So, this structure is for organizing your photos on your hard drive rather than setting up the organization inside whatever editor you prefer, though often they'll mirror each other.
The three folders you need are RAW, Live, and Selects.
The backend organization of photo projects is relatively straightforward, while how you categorize images in your editor can be much more customized.
RAW
The RAW folder, obviously, has all of your RAW image files. These are then sorted in sub-folders by date. So, a brand shoot for my company, LIIP, on August 16, 2024, would be in a folder titled 240816-LIIP-BrandShoot.
Live
The Live folder is there for working images. Now, if you're only editing in a single program like Lightroom, you won't be saving anything here. But, if you're starting in Lightroom and then finishing an image in Photoshop, you'd save the Photoshop file here. You'll also want to create a folder with the same name as what you have in the RAW folder so they're clearly part of the same project.
Selects
The Selects folder is for your final images. And, like in the RAW and Live folders, you'll want to create another folder with the same project name so you know what's what.
Also, I recreate these folders in a top-level year folder like 2024, so I can easily archive a year's worth of work and not have to dig through a bunch of folders all the time.
Organizing Video Projects.
While similar to Photo projects, Video projects have many more assets to manage and, therefore, need a different structure.
The main reason for this is each video project is self-contained. This means each project will have all its assets saved within a singular folder structure without any crossover from one project to another. This way, projects can be easily transferred between computers or editors and later archived.
Every video project will have a main project folder and then sub-folders for each type of asset.
Video projects are best saved and managed independently from every other video project you’re working on.
Project Folder.
The Project Folder will include the reverse date for organization followed by the brand and project. For example, a launch video capture on January 15, 2014, for Liip would be saved to a folder named 240115-LIIP-LaunchVideo.
Then, the asset folders within the Project Folder are:
00-Premiere
The Premiere Folder is where I save the project itself. I edit in Adobe Premier Pro, which is why I named the folder Premiere, but you can call it whatever editor you use.
01-Motion
The Motion Folder is where I save all of my video assets. Depending on the size of the project, I may put all of the clips here. Or, if I have media from multiple cameras or different days, I'll further break them out however makes the most sense.
02-Audio
All of my audio clips then go into the Audio Folder, which is further broken down into folders of the different types of audio files I have. These audio sub-folders are Dialog, Ambient, Music, and SFX.
Then, like the Motion Folder, I'll create additional sub-folders if I need to separate things by recording device or day captured.
03-Graphics
The Graphics Folder is for any titles, overlays, or visual elements used in the project.
04-Stills
The Stills Folder is obviously there for any still images being used. Graphics can be still assets, but Stills to me is any photo image while Graphics are more of a rendering or visual.
05-Exports
All Final Exports are saved to the Exports Folder. Mostly, I'll put them all in the main folder and make sure I name them correctly so I know what's what if there's more than one. But, if needed, I'll create other sub-folders for the size or platform the video is going on if there are multiple.
Archive Organization.
Ok, so far, all of our assets and top-level folders have been organized by reverse date in their folder or file name.
Now, something I like to do when they go into my archive is to add another layer above those to categorize them by client or project type. When I need to go back and find something I worked on before, I more often remember the client or project type than the specific date I worked on it.
Then, inside these client or project-type folders, everything remains dated as they were initially.
This extra bit of categorization makes it super easy to find things no matter how long ago I worked on them.
Additional Considerations.
Settings up your folders doesn't have to be hard. But it takes being diligent, so here are a handful of things to consider as you either set up your folders or continue maintaining them.
The fewer folders, the better — you don't want to have to dig for every asset.
Be consistent, each project should mirror each other so you always know where to find things.
Be logical, do whatever makes the most sense for your project within these frameworks.
Don't let short-term storage pile up — everything needs a home.
Be able to tell someone where to find an asset without having to show them.
All this said, good file and folder structure doesn't matter if you don't have a proven backup strategy to protect your data from ever being lost or destroyed.
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