Naming Conventions
What is a Naming Convention after all?
according to Purdue University:
“A File Naming Convention (FNC) is a framework for naming your files in a way that describes what they contain and how they relate to other files.”
Why should you have a file naming structure?
Having a file naming structure helps you in a number of different ways.
- It helps you stay organized, so that you can save time
- It reduces the chances of mistakes
- It makes communicating with clients easier
- It makes working with team members easier
- It makes files and folders easier to search for
- It improves SEO
- It improves the readability of the file names
- It elevates your professionalism as a graphic designer
Do's
and
Don't's
Work as if you’ll die tomorrow and leave no room for misinterpretation in your deliverables
special characters
[NEVER EVER]
Avoid using special characters in a file name.
\ / : * ? " < > | [ ] & $ , .
Do not use full stops anywhere in your file name
only at the end before the end before the file type.
(.jpg .tiff .pdf etc.)
special characters
[NEVER EVER-EXCEPTION]
Don't use spaces
Use underscores instead of periods or spaces
underscore_OR-dash
Keep under 25 characters
Should be sufficient to capture descriptive information
World_War_I/Posters/Masingale/0001.tif
wwI_poster_owens_0001.tif
Include the date at the end
inlcude dates and format them consistently
YYMMDD
useful sorting tool
needs to be consistent
INTERNATIONAL STANDARD
150928
Include a version number
-
update
-
new
-
old
-
final
- finalFINAL
more effective than...
"v' = "version number
-
THIS_IS_THE_FINAL
-
JUST KIDDING THIS IS THE FINAL_FINAL VERSION FOR REAL THIS TIME
- Where is the final
Be consistent
The most important rule of file-naming is to be consistent.
tips and tricks
camelCaseNamingStyle
In camel casing, names start with a lower case but each proper word in the name is capitalized and so are acronyms.
tips and tricks
PascalCaseNamingStyle
Pascal casing is similar to camel casing except that the first letter also starts with a capital letter
tips and tricks
underscore_naming_style
In underscore casing, everything is in lower case (even acronyms) and the words are separated by underscores, also known as snake case.
tips and tricks
Use hyphens to denote version
or hierarchy
tips and tricks
Use folders for hierarchy
tips and tricks
variations and minor changes
03a 03b 03c
next version
04a 04b 04c
examples:
masingaleTravis-p1trifoldBrochure-v1-w22
For this class you will use something like this:
lastnameFirstname-project#-title-YYYYMMDD-w22
further reading
Naming Conventions
By Travis Masingale
