Organization & Productivity · Freelance & Business
An editorial designer's client folder, naming and backup system
Hadley Hendrix shares her nested client folders, round-and-date file naming, and end-of-day backup routine.
Done withOOneDrive
One designer’s own system
WHAT THEY DID
Hadley Hendrix keeps one folder per client, then per project, with service folders (cover, interior, typesetting), a general folder for contracts and invoices, and round folders (R1, R2, R3), each with deliverables. Files are named round, service, short title, date, and she saves a dated copy before reopening a file.
STEP BY STEP
- Keep a Work folder in OneDrive with one folder per client, and inside each a folder per project plus a shared resources folder.
- In each project, use service folders (cover design, interior design, typesetting and so on), a general folder for contracts and invoices, and a resources folder for client-provided content.
- Inside service folders, make a folder per round (R1, R2, R3) with its own DELIVERABLES folder, plus a FINAL DELIVERABLES folder.
- Name files as round, service, abbreviated title, then date, separated by underscores; Save As with today's date before reopening a file.
- Save to OneDrive first, note which folders changed, and copy them to an external drive at the end of the day.
HOW IT WENT
She reports the dated names let her return to earlier milestones without redoing work. She backs up by copying the day’s changed folders to an external drive, which she does daily because she lost files twice before, in high school.
Reported results: She reports the date-based naming gives version control and lets her return to earlier milestones, and that she backs up daily because she lost files twice before, in high school.
WORTH KNOWING
Built around book and magazine projects, and the manual copy depends on remembering. She calls it her current method, not the right one, and plans to simplify the abbreviations.
Rates the entry, not the tool.
Source: Hadley Hendrix · Substack (Hadley House)Open as a page
- Work done: not stated in the source
- Source published: Apr 2, 2026
- On 4TC: added Oct 20, 2026 · checked Oct 20, 2026
About this source
Type: First-person workflow · Firsthand report
- How to organize project files
Hadley Hendrix · Substack (Hadley House) · Published Apr 2, 2026 · Checked Oct 20, 2026
Source check: Spot-checked by the 4TC build team on Oct 20, 2026. Fetched and read on 2026-10-20. Nobody at 4TC has tested this.
Claims and where they come from
- OneDrive isn't used as the backup because syncing propagates deletions (reported) [1]
4TC interpretation
Our reading, not something the source says.
Most lost-file and revision-mix-up problems are organization problems. A named, repeatable structure is a free upgrade to any practice.
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