It is hard to see into the future.

And yet: The future is going to be there. Especially the short- and medium-term future. The next ten years, twenty years, fifty years.

Creative friends working on commercial art, keep this in mind when you are doing the totally mundane parts of your work, like organizing files or naming Photoshop layers.

It doesn't need to bog down your creativity to leave some breadcrumbs for the folks who might be working with your files ten years from now, when you've moved on to other things.

Said another way, consider "SwordGame Website Graphics Buildfile 2020-10-16.psd" instead of "web_art." You can even leave some of that stuff out to shorten the filename, if you it in some sensibly named structure. Put it in the "SwordGame Website" directory, maybe.

Even if you're a person who thinks being organized is for boring capitalists who buy underwear that's too tight, think of this as a work of kindness for the future creatives, like you, who are doing commercial art to live.

Even if the project you're working on is shelved forever right after you're done with it (and why would you want to assume that?), and no one ever looks at the files again forever and ever, it's not a superhuman effort to do this future-looking kindness.

I love you all, creative friends.