Naming System

Managing your documents and your time.

Have you ever experienced trouble in finding an important file when you need it the most? If you have, it might not give a good opinion of yourself.

Throughout my study, I worked with Anthropology designers. I always wonder how anthropology is related to design and how it can impact working culture. As Graphic Designer, it is important to have your folders classified, linked files organised and named correctly to be efficient.

Aligning culture with design, I reflected my family naming system discipline to my working culture. Due to logographic writing, the Chinese naming system has been consistent, sustainable and traceable throughout several generational succession.

“One generation builds the street on which the next will walk" Chinese proverb

Chinese naming system consist of three writing characters. The classification is based on information hierarchy, from a bigger picture perspective;

1. Family name

2. Generational name

3. Given name

Reflecting this concept to my working culture, I named my documents in the same orderly fashion.

1. Name of project folder

2. Name indicating time

3. Name of file description

From analytic perspective, there is nothing right or wrong way to name your folders and files as long as it is consistent and sustainable to make it easy for you to trace them.

From internet resources, files should be named consistently.

• File names should be short but descriptive (<25 characters) (Briney, 2015)

• Avoid special characters or spaces in a file name

• Use capitals and underscores instead of periods or spaces or slashes

• Use date format ISO 8601: YYYYMMDD

• Include a version number (Creamer et al. 2014)

• Write down naming convention in data management plan