Organizing

How do you keep your designs organized? I have bought a pile from design bundles and now am overwhelmed when I go to look for anything.

Some discussion here:

https://community.glowforge.com/search?q=file%20organization

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I presume you received the files on your computer, probably as a zip file that has a name? If you unzip it to a regular folder of the same name you will have all those files in a folder.

I have discovered that the windows folder will show svg images if you go to those settings. From that you can see what stuff is and create subfolders (say dogs) and just drag and drop any dog image into that subdirectory, That whole thing will not take so long and anything that does not fit an easy definition just leave there. :slightly_smiling_face:

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@mcbgilby

I got in a habit back in 2005(2003)? when I turned my paper scrapbooking into digital scrapbooking. I was dealing with lots of files.

First I categorize by subjects:

Nature; Religion; Family; Wedding; Snarky; Pets (inside I have a Cat folder and a Dog folder and I don’t do snakes so sister-in-law is out of luck) …

You might know this but here goes… I will always take a jpg of something (say a file folder with pictures of cactus) and take the cactus.jpg and make a copy and rename that file to folder.jpg which allows the PICTURE to show in the folder ---- let me attach a picture of what I mean image
so in the larger folder that says something like “Mark Collier Commercial” it means anything inside the folder are things I can make commercially if I ever decide to. As you can see these folders all have a picture associated inside (those are the ones named folder.jpg ) and you can always use the windows “screen snip” to capture a JPG and name it that way.

It might take a couple of minutes but, it is in my opinion, it saves me a lot of time when I am trying to find something specific and can’t remember the name…I can quickly scan the pics in a folder.

If you have any questions, let me know and I’ll try to help. This is one of those few places that I am “organized in places no one ever sees”. LOL

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Really? I have so many I just use the numbers created by the computer, but have no issues about pictures…

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This may be a “to a person with a hammer, everything looks like a nail” solution but, could you use some sort of digital asset management (DAM) system? I have used this with my photography to make it possible to search for images by tags and descriptions and, to assemble virtual collections automatically or semi-automatically by theme.

Mostly, I use Bridge and Lightroom now. I have also used some more sophisticated commercial DAM software but, I know there are some open source (“free”) options. I’m not really up-to-date on those. So, it might take some research. There might even be something specifically targeted at this need by now.

Some image file formats have built-in support for metadata, including tags. Some software supports “sidecar” files for formats that don’t support metadata directly. Even if there is not direct support for what you are trying to organize, you might be able to represent it with a thumbnail image in the same directory with appropriate metadata.

There is some up-front investment of time to get things organized if the original provider hasn’t already added metadata. The most effective approach there is usually to start tagging new stuff as it comes in and, tag older stuff as needed or, in limited batches (e.g., set a half hour a day for tagging the existing library or something).

Edit: I note that STW for “organize graphic design assets” yields a vast number of articles on both this approach and, well-tested folder hierarchies. Let us know if you come up with something good!

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I was using Irfanview even though it was a bit shaky in SVGs, and FastStone won’t see them at all, but I found a free plugin for Explorer that shows them very well.

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I used to use Irfanview as well.

@evermorian I used to do that years ago, but it was soooooooo cumbersome to set up with as much as I owned by the time I started it ---- then I found something else I liked better and I found I was spending too much time tagging things so I went to the folder.jpg so I could see a sneak peek of what is in a folder…then I just put them in the “themed folders” like I mentioned before.

I have used both bridge (but if I remember right, didn’t Adobe discontinue Bridge? or did it bring it back for the subscription based?) … I use CS4 and I have the original Lightroom but I only used it to batch lighten pics which I don’t need like I used to any more.

Lots of ways to do it … this way is my albeit lazy way but it works for me and it doesn’t matter if I change programs, it is still organized the same. :wink:

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It is still available in the subscription.

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