Cataloging your art

[ericheartsu]

We need to catalog our artwork, but are at a loss on how to do it. We also have about 5 different departments, that also need to be indexing their art!

Can anyone share some tips on how they do it in their shop? We have about 12 years of art files saved up that we need to go through, but we want to put a system in place that can work with old and new.

[ZooCity]

Alphanumeric naming system here for all final files, press sheets, mockup .psd files. 

Then organized in folders by client. 

The unique alphanumeric string is the key I think, prevents errors and searchable on nearly any platform.

Looks like the attached.

[Dottonedan]

Agreed. Zoo's got it going on.

Areas:
S Separations
P Print
E Embroidery
D Dye Sub

S18-2596-Mullers Printing-Divers Day-2018

The negative for me, is that my sep customers never use or keep my numbers. So when they ask for me to re-send a sep from 3 yrs ago, I have to dig a little.

[screenxpress]

I only made this as a mockup, but how about keeping each customer in their own 'master' folder, then 'order' folders inside each one preceded with date (ccyymmdd so they are easily sorted) and a name that is recognized as the print itself, then all the files associated with that dated order inside?

To lookup an old order, you just have to go to the customer name, find the right date (with print name to help), and bang, there's all the files associated with the order.  Obviously the files shown are just bogus for presentation.

BTW, even though this is a mockup, I actually keep my customers/folders organized like this.

[JasonMoore]

Very simple.

Every order we do has a unique order number assigned to it.

We simply save the artwork with the same order number in a different folder.

Order Number: 06821
Artwork Saved as: 06821.AI

Keeps it very simple and very clean.

[screenxpress]

Very simple.

Every order we do has a unique order number assigned to it.

We simply save the artwork with the same order number in a different folder.

Order Number: 06821
Artwork Saved as: 06821.AI

Keeps it very simple and very clean.

Since you keep the orders indexed by Order Number, how do you find the Order Number if customer "xyz" calls for a reprint?

[CBCB]

We have an automation running to help keep things dialled. When a new quote is created in Printavo, a folder is generated using info from the Order. Order number, customer name, business/organization if applicable. It also creates a text file in the folder with the same name. So when we go to save a design in the folder we can click the text file to pre-fill the file name with the same title as the folder, plus adding a design description. We keep all print-ready files here. Mockups are in Printavo. Original client files are usually not needed, but can be found in Gmail with a search since we make everyone email the files in.

For example, the folder would be:

1234 - John Smith Plumber Guys

And the file:

1234 - John Smith Plumber Guys - Distressed Logo Front.ai

This helps us keep organized file names without extra work. The base is there, just need add a descriptive design name.

We can search for any old order by number, client name, company.

For re-orders, whoever is booking the Order can pull up old designs and copy them into the new order’s folder to make mockups. Quick update to the order number in the filename and boom we’re set.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BP]

So here's my thought on this. Take a good look at the cost of someone filing your artwork. The cost of the folders and the time spent looking for artwork for a re-order. I found that it is cheaper to use the film and trash it. Print new film for re-orders is way cheaper. I do have a couple of customer I save there films because they re-order alot.

Also think of the space and the art you save that never gets re-used!

[merchmonster]

Here's how we do it. The number corresponds to the job number in Printavo. So the files and folders are searchable by job # or customer name.

[merchmonster]

we also store revisions in an archive folder for those rare (cough) times a client decides to revert to the previous iteration. then we mass delete archive folders periodically to get rid of junk files.

[CBCB]

So here's my thought on this. Take a good look at the cost of someone filing your artwork. The cost of the folders and the time spent looking for artwork for a re-order. I found that it is cheaper to use the film and trash it. Print new film for re-orders is way cheaper. I do have a couple of customer I save there films because they re-order alot.

Also think of the space and the art you save that never gets re-used!

Exactly. We print fresh film for each order. Rather pay someone to do something productive while the film comes out than pay them to search through folders and reprint it anyway because the condition isn’t good.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk