The Digital Warehouse: Naming conventions and further organisation
Operating with strict naming conventions is something very common for technology-, production- and logistics companies. Think of a pharmaceutical company; the company needs to be able to account for every single step taken throughout a manufacturing process to be able to sell their products to consumers. This means that every employee, machine and contractor needs to follow the same underlying structure and sign off at every step. This is called Good Manufacturing Practice, or GMP for short, and it is required by law to follow these standards.
While playing in a band doesn’t come with institutional law requirements, it is important to emphasize that operating your band with some clear standards and guidelines is highly beneficial. I doubt many musicians are unfamiliar with file names like ‘Demo-Song03_mix2_final_master_final-final.wav.mp3’ which makes it almost impossible to locate the right version. If we think about this according to a GMP standard, the aforementioned song would need to have another, more clear structure. This is where naming conventions come in handy.
File naming conventions
Setting aside folder sub-structures for a second, let’s just look only at the name. First of all, whoever made this name has entangled the terms ‘demo’, ‘song, ‘mix’ with ‘master’, as well as .wav with .mp3. Following good naming conventions, the subtext ‘mix’ belongs only to a mix. We must assume that the mix is finished, since there is a master. We can also assume it is no longer a demo, since it is both mixed and mastered, and so on. Let’s break them up into terms:
Demo-Song03
_mix2
_master
.wav
.mp3
.. and then all the ‘final’ terms.
Here, we could group the terms according to a standard. Thus, ‘demo’ ‘mix’ and ‘master’ could be labelled types, ‘Song’ could be labelled content and ‘.wav’ and ‘.mp3’ could be labelled formats. To make a coherent naming convention, one must think about what the file actually contains in terms of the different labels. A file should not have more than one of each label.
Let’s say that for this example, the actual file is the final master of song3, exported as .mp3.
We can remove the ‘Demo-’ term, the ‘_mix2’ term and the .wav term. This leaves us with ‘Song03’, ‘_master.wav’ and a couple of ‘final’s’.
Now, here is the important takeaway for naming conventions: how you choose to standardise the naming of your files depends on how you want to find them. This is greatly influenced by how you have set up your folder structures. For this example, there is a difference between how you would name files if your subfolder is called ‘SONGS’ or ‘MASTERS’. To sort and index the files, you would usually sort by name. In a folder called ‘SONGS’, it would make sense to sort according to the type, in this case the term ‘master’. In a folder called ‘MASTERS’, it would make sense to sort according to content, thus the term ‘Song3’. Formats are usually made automatically through export.
In the case of a ‘MASTERS’ subfolder, the name could then be: song3_master.mp3. Sorting for name would then list all the songs from 1 to, let’s say, 10. It would disregard the type in this case. However, if you were to make a search from your primary folders, searching ‘_master’ will show your file in the ‘MASTERS’ folder immediately, and you could trust that it is the right file.
In the case of a ‘SONGS’ subfolder, the name could then be: master_song3.mp3. If you had all of your different types in this folder (mix, demo, master), sorting by name would separate them as such. While we don’t recommend this type of folder structure, we hope it makes it clear why naming changes with the subfolder structure.
Using dates in naming conventions
In some cases it might be beneficial to use dates in your naming convention, such as for video clips that you want to be able to find based on chronology. For other types of digital assets, it’s absolutely crucial that you are able to distinguish them by date, such as for receipts.
Here, we suggest following the yyyy.mm.dd format because it’s the most effective for sorting your digital assets chronologically. This format inputs first the year, then the month and finally the date of your file, thus making it possible to sort completely chronologically in your folders when sorting by name. Here’s an example to emphasise why.
If you have 3 receipts to enter into your system from 3 different days, and you name them using the yyyy-mm-dd format, if you sort them by name in your folder they will line up as:
2023_11_06 - Receipt 1
2023_08_03 - Receipt 2
2023_06_11 - Receipt 3
If, for example, you instead chose to use the dd.mm.yyyy format, thus sorting on first date, then month, and finally year, sorting your files by their name will give you:
03_08_2023 - Receipt 2
06_11_2023 - Receipt 1
11_06_2023 - Receipt 6
As you can see, it can mess up the order of the items. With 3 items in your folder, this is not much of a problem. But imagine having 200 files in the same folder and you’ll quickly realise why it matters!
The same would be the case for video content that you’ve recorded. We highly suggest using yyyy.mm.dd format for your raw files, so that you are always able to sort your video content by name, thus listing them chronologically in your folders.
Once you then import your videofiles into a video editing software, you can then decide to change the name of the files inside the program if you’d like. However, within your digital warehouse, we highly suggest that you keep the strict naming convention, and organise the videofiles by date to be able to sort them on name.
Why sort on name?
You could obviously easily sort your files on other identifiers than on name. There is the possibility on sorting on creation date and other things, but the big problem with this is that you risk losing your control of how the files behave in your system. You never know if the creation date is actually the same as the actual date of the file you are looking at. This could be a problem for receipts and videofiles, where you could have a different creation date than the date of shooting. This is why, for simplicity and control, we highly suggest sorting files on their name, and thus using the yyyy.mm.dd format for all purposes.
Finally, we also want to point out that in many cases, there is the option of automatically creating a naming convention in certain software. For video footage, this can be done in your smartphone or inside your camera, where you can specify how the device should name your files. It is also possible with receipts in software such as Adobe Scan, which we highly recommend using. And in Dropbox there is an automatic naming function that you can toggle on in each folder in order to directly add dates to your new uploads.
Folder naming conventions
Another layer of control you can implement for your digital assets comes in the form of folder naming conventions. Similar to the file naming conventions, folder naming conventions will make it a lot easier to find and work with certain folders in your digital warehouse.
In the context of folders, naming conventions can help in two main ways:
Giving the ability to sort folders chronologically on name.
Distinguishing folders of the same type from each other using bracketed tags.
The first comes from working with indexing numbers for each of your folders in your folder tree. The second comes from using bracketed tags in certain folders. To explain this more clearly, let’s look at an example.
Indexing numbers
Folders with indexing numbers is simply adding a number to your folder names.
For your primary folders, it could look like this:
And if we dive into the 2. MEDIA primary folder, your secondary layer could be indexed like this:
When using a structure like this, you maintain control over the order of how your folders are sorted. This can help you save time when going through folders, because you learn the numbering over time. Furthermore, it keeps your folders looking clean and organised, making it easier to find things in general. You will find a way to index your own digital warehouse so it makes sense to you, but this is just suggestions based on how we do it!
Bracketed tags
The next layer of control comes from using bracketed tags in your folder names. This is especially useful when you have many folders of the same type or name that you want to be able to distinguish quickly. This could for instance be the case when having a folder for “ALBUM 1” in both Music → Masters and in MEDIA → Artwork.
This might seem like a ridiculous optimisation strategy, but if you’re working with many folders open at once or you’re interrupted by someone in the middle of your work, you’re quickly back on track by looking only at the bracketed tags without having to go back through the parent folders. It takes no time to add a bracketed tag to your folder when you create it, and in the end it can help you organise your work.
In the final article of this series, we look at some good practices for using your digital warehouse. Stay tuned.