How to organize your design/creative resources folder

Like me, you might have a world of creative resources floating around anywhere from your downloads folder to your desktop or in job folders.

Marc Ashwell
3 min readDec 18, 2016

Here is my attempt to help organize your creative assets. Feel free to download the whole creative resources folder structure here.

Here’s what it’s made up of:

Root of Resources Folder

The root contains almost all types of files you would need or have in your creative library, from vectors and audio to video and Photoshop actions.

In most folders, 3 sub-folders exists to help keep you organized

Most of the folders have 3 sub-folders; Flat (photographs and raster images), PSD (layered photoshop files) and Vector (editable files such as AI, EPS, etc.).

Special Folders have also been created to house specific content types.

Add-ons — Were you would keep all your Photoshop actions, colour palettes, scripts, etc.

Add-ons Folder

Audio — to store FX, Loops and Music, which have all been created with their specific sub-categories.

Audio Root Folder
The FX Folder
The Loops Folder

The Music folder is organized by genre each with 2 sub-folders for Clips and full Songs.

The Music Folder

Fonts — with sub-folders for easy navigation of different types of fonts. Remember, the more fonts you install, the slower your computer

Images — this one took a lot of thinking. Eventually I decided it makes more sense to categorize by subject, then by Flat (photographs and raster images), PSD (layered photoshop files) and Vector (editable files such as AI, EPS, etc.).

Themes — for Keynote, Wordpress and other themes.

Video — almost exactly the same as Images, but also including folders for FX and Overlays.

You will notices that a few of the folders have place for licenses, as it is always good practice to organize them well.

Download the structure, give it a try and let me know what you think!

If you like this, you may like this article on organizing client folders.

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Marc Ashwell

Marketing Professional. Problem Solver. Not saving lives.