How to Design Better File Structures: Part 3 - Folder Structure

Note: This article focuses on folder structure design. For the foundational principles and philosophy, see Part 1: Philosophy and Good Practice. For file naming conventions, see Part 2: Naming Your Files Properly.

Folder structure design

You want to package your files in a way that is easy to both understand and navigate. There are many ways to structure folders. A good way to keep things clean is to organize them by concerns and units.

1. Concerns: Components of a project
   • Examples: docs, assets, work, exports
2. Units: Sub-projects within a project
   • Examples: features, episodes, deliverables

A concern should be nested at the level where it is most relevant. It can belong to the project as a whole or to a specific unit.

video-project
  assets
    video-project_logo.png
    video-project_hero.jpg
  docs
    video-project_outline.pdf
  episodes
    episode-1
      assets
        episode-1_thumbnail.png
      docs
        episode-1-script.pdf
      work
      exports
  

In this example, both our project and the first episode have a docs and assets folder. These folders have different contexts and should be kept separate.

Single unit or repeating unit

It's important to understand the difference between a single unit and a repeating unit.

• Single unit: Project with one main deliverable. The project itself is the unit.
  • Examples: movie, presentation, wedding planning
• Repeating unit: Project that has repeating deliverables. The project itself might have deliverables, but it has episodes as repeating units.
  • Examples: TV show, podcast series, album with many songs, quarterly reports.

This distinction will help you decide between a single unit structure and a repeating unit structure.

1. Single unit structure

Let's say the project is to produce a video for a client. The deliverable is one video, a single unit.

video-project_name
  docs
    script.md
    storyboard.pdf
  assets
    footage
      raw
      proxies
      audio
        music
        sfx
        vo
    graphics
    fonts
  work
    project-name_v001.prproj
    project-name_v001.aep
  exports
    project-name_1080p_v001.mp4
    project-name_4k_v001.mp4
    project-name_web_v001.mp4

2. Repeating unit structure

Now if we produce a video series instead and we deliver multiple videos on a recurring basis, we have a repeating unit. Our structure will grow as we add more episodes by creating new episode folders and files. Each episode is treated as a sub-project with its own structure.

video-project
  project_name
    docs
      README.md
    assets
      graphics
      fonts
      luts
    episodes
      episode-1 (this is a repeating unit)
        assets
          footage
            raw
            proxies
            audio
              music
              sfx
              vo
        work
          project-name_episode-1_v001.prproj
          project-name_episode-1_v001.aep
        exports
          project-name_episode-1_1080p_v001.mp4
          project-name_episode-1_4k_v001.mp4
          project-name_episode-1_web_v001.mp4

One item type per folder

A good rule of thumb is to have one item type per folder. This is a good way to keep your file structure clean and easy to understand.

Item types can be grouped by their purpose, format, file type, etc. Just make sure not to mix different item types in the same folder.

assets
  images
    client-name_project-name_logo_001.png
    client-name_project-name_hero_001.jpg
  videos
    client-name_project-name_trailer_001.mp4
    client-name_project-name_teaser_001.mp4

• assets: Only contains folders
• assets/images: Only contains images
• assets/videos: Only contains videos

If you have more files, or if you expect there will be multiple increments of the same file, you should add more subfolders for each item.

assets
  audio
    music
      client-name_project-name_music_001.mp3
    sfx
      client-name_project-name_sfx_001.mp3
  images
    cover 
      client-name_project-name_cover_001.jpg
    logos
      client-name_project-name_logo_001.png
      client-name_project-name_logo_002.png
    hero
      client-name_project-name_hero_001.jpg
      client-name_project-name_hero_002.jpg
  videos
    episode-1
        trailers    
            mov
                client-name_project-name_episode-1_trailer_001.mov
                client-name_project-name_episode-1_trailer_002.mov
            mp4
                client-name_project-name_episode-1_trailer_001.mp4
                client-name_project-name_episode-1_trailer_002.mp4
        teasers
            mov
                client-name_project-name_episode-1_teaser_001.mov
                client-name_project-name_episode-1_teaser_002.mov
            mp4
                client-name_project-name_episode-1_teaser_001.mp4
                client-name_project-name_episode-1_teaser_002.mp4

This stays very readable and will still scale easily with hundreds or even thousands of files.

If you don't use enough subfolders, things will quickly become hard to visually scan:

assets
  client-name_project-name_cover_001.jpg
  client-name_project-name_episode-1_trailer_001.mp4
  client-name_project-name_episode-1_trailer_001.mov
  client-name_project-name_episode-1_trailer_002.mp4
  client-name_project-name_episode-1_trailer_002.mov
  client-name_project-name_episode-1_teaser_001.mp4
  client-name_project-name_episode-1_teaser_001.mov
  client-name_project-name_episode-1_teaser_002.mp4
  client-name_project-name_episode-1_teaser_002.mov
  client-name_project-name_logo_001.png
  client-name_project-name_logo_002.png
  client-name_project-name_music_001.mp3
  client-name_project-name_sfx_001.mp3
  client-name_project-name_hero_001.jpg
  client-name_project-name_hero_002.jpg