How do you organise your fonts

iGav · Aug 25, 2006

I'm currently sorting through my archives, with the dream being that by the end of this year, I'll be properly organised, with no dupes, descriptive folder and file titles and generally being in a position where I can actually find stuff.

So... I've now reached the letter F in the A to Z slog

and that means fonts... and lots of them, somewhere in the region of 25,000-26,000 I think.

Now attached is the mess in what one of my font folders is currently in, as you can see it's arranged so that some are arranged in alphabetical folders ABC, DEF, etc etc, and others are arranged by House/Foundry/Drawer.

Now... I'm thinking that ideally I'd like to have them arranged by House/Foundry/Drawer even though it's going to be a fair old amount of sorting, sifting and arranging but I'm just curious to what systems others might be using?

For example do you just arrange them alphabetically? or maybe by style... sans, sans-serifs and then in alphabetical folders?

Or do you go a little more hardcore and have them arranged according to classification... e.g. Geometric, Grotesque, Humanist, Modern, Old Style, Slab Serif, Transitional etc.

Thoughts???

G

Blue Velvet · Aug 25, 2006

iGav said:
Or do you go a little more hardcore and have them arranged according to classification... e.g. Geometric, Grotesque, Humanist, Modern, Old Style, Slab Serif, Transitional etc.

Tried that for a while in sub-folders that were arranged alphabetically then faces like Optima would present the occasional quandary and then when you get busy and people start sending you fonts and you put them on temporary activation in Suitcase... well, you get the idea. And then you get a corporate job where everything is done in two families and then you start forgetting what faces you used to know well looked like... and then when a freelance job comes up that demands the use of something different, you don't know how to find it any more.

At home, I've reverted back to plain old alphabetical folders for all fonts now. At work, it's fairly restricted, it's quite dull. About 100 Linotype families covering most corporate and commercial uses. Good solid workhorses, most of them.

Anyway, the home setup... *yawn*

This is what I'm doing on a Friday night?!

7on · Aug 25, 2006

Everything all in one folder.

I know, sloppy sloppy.

iGav · Aug 25, 2006

Blue Velvet said:
This is what I'm doing on a Friday night?!

If you want something more interesting to do... I can always send you my font folders and you can arrange them for me.

Blue Velvet · Aug 25, 2006

iGav said:
If you want something more interesting to do... I can always send you my font folders and you can arrange them for me.

Haha!

Er, just got some pressing housework to do. Besides, you'd be soooo much better at it than me...

Alphabetical seems the handiest unless you're a puritan, obsessive or have got too much time on hands. Or all three.

Personally, I'd rather spend the time organising stuff in iTunes.

7on · Aug 25, 2006

iGav said:
If you want something more interesting to do... I can always send you my font folders and you can arrange them for me.

haha, sweet Free Fonts!

iGav · Aug 25, 2006

7on said:
Everything all in one folder.

I know, sloppy sloppy.

Judging by how organised Blue is, and my desire to do the same... I'm thinking it's something that comes with age...

so I wouldn't worry about it just yet.

Blue, how do you organise each folder? do you have the font in a titled folder, e.g. FF Blur in a Folder titled 'FF Blur' or do you just have the font file in the corresponding letter folder???

I'm thinking I really need one of these to boss around and get them to do all this tedious stuff for me, it's a design assistant by the way, not a gimp.

decksnap · Aug 25, 2006

Plain old alphabetical folders.

Lau · Aug 25, 2006

Really really badly.

This thread has reminded me I need to get my arse in gear and sort them out though. I look forward to picking up tips from you lot.

Blue Velvet · Aug 25, 2006

iGav said:
Blue, how do you organise each folder? do you have the font in a titled folder, e.g. FF Blur in a Folder titled 'FF Blur' or do you just have the font file in the corresponding letter folder???

Font outlines, suitcases, whatever belongs to a font, they all go into their separate folder within the alphabetical folder.

And no, I don't worry about foundries. If I'm looking for a Garamond, then I want them all together where I can find them. I suppose with the advent of Spotlight this may not be so important but I still like things relatively tidy.

Here's more signs of anal-obsessiveness... but now I'm embarrassed that some of the folders aren't capitalised and there's a couple of loose strays.

Oooh, it's almost like showing you my underwear drawer.

ATD · Aug 25, 2006

Alphabetical folders with the Foundry names. The blue highlights are non Adobe for easy access. I have about 12,000.

KidHoliday · Aug 25, 2006

Controlled Chaos

I have one big massive folder.
followed by smaller genre and job specific folders whenever possible.
like: retro, handwritten, fancy, etc...

There should be some online font service that lets you log on to their servers from suitcase and use their super-organized fonts.

benwa02 · Aug 25, 2006

I use linotype fontexplorer (free) and it automatically organizes the fonts into folders by A, B, C etc...

but within the program I have organized them in what they call "Sets": Pixel fonts, Sans, Serif etc...

to me it makes more sense to organize by the style than to organize any other way. Whos goin around looking for a font they have by designer? When you look for a font you have a certain style in your head so you should instead go looking in that style rather than looking inside each designers folder...

my .2

aricher · Aug 25, 2006

I have waaayyy to much organizational duties to do beyond fonts. I'm afraid that just dumping everything into Suitcase fusion and compartmentalizing it by client fonts is about the best I can do right now. At least last year though I printed reference sample books of all my fonts.

TheAnswer · Aug 26, 2006

Wow...my OCD just found something new to worry about. I had them by Foundry, but now I might go with alphabetical with the Foundry in brackets at the End. Ohh well, there goes Labor Day weekend (since my OCD already has this weekend planned out). Plus, that allows we to watch the thread for any other cool ideas.

iGav · Aug 26, 2006

Blue Velvet said:
Oooh, it's almost like showing you my underwear drawer.

And how do your organise its contents???

ATD said:
Alphabetical folders with the Foundry names.

Oooooh, I'm liking that method.

benwa02 said:
Whos goin around looking for a font they have by designer?

I know someone who does EXACTLY that.

TheAnswer · Aug 26, 2006

Well...I'm glad I had them organized by foundry, since I just created a simple automator action to add the foundry abbreviation to the end of each folder. Can't imagine having them alphabetical and then wanting to add the foundry later.

ATD · Aug 26, 2006

TheAnswer said:
Wow...my OCD just found something new to worry about. I had them by Foundry, but now I might go with alphabetical with the Foundry in brackets at the End. Ohh well, there goes Labor Day weekend (since my OCD already has this weekend planned out). Plus, that allows we to watch the thread for any other cool ideas.

LOL. I think that designers have to have a touch of OCD to do this work. It comforts me to think that anyway.

DJMastaWes · Aug 26, 2006

Just alphabetical order.

iGav · Aug 27, 2006

ATD said:
LOL. I think that designers have to have a touch of OCD to do this work.

I was just wondering what an 'OCD' was/is, I was thinking.... Something/Creative/Director, but I couldn't fathom what the 'O' stood for, a quick google put me right... so I understand now...

and I'm anal too.

ATD · Aug 27, 2006

This thread is cracking me up, thanks The Answer for injecting that OCD bit. iGav it just occurred to that if you got a design assistant to do the work for you, you could never be sure it was EXACTLLY RIGHT, could you? What if all the ITC fonts were listed under I. What if A26 became A2.6? I'll bet you would end up checking it line for line anyway. You know I'm poking fun at myself here as well.

TheAnswer · Aug 27, 2006

LOL ATD Last night, I was scrolling thru after Automator added [adb/ps] or [adb/ot] to the Adobes, and just sighed, realizing that I had to select all the ITC fonts, have Automator delete the ITC and the space, then change [adb/ps] to [adb/itc/ps] and [adb/ot] to [adb/itc/ot].

Still not sure if I should put all the Garamonds, etc together or not yet. Leaning that way, though.

Now if someone hasn't already, someone needs to create a program that can examine each font file or pull from a centralized source of information on style, designer name, names of similar fonts, date, country of origin and other info (maybe even emotional catagories like "playful") and add it to the spotlight meta data of each file.

Then I'd be organized.

ATD · Aug 27, 2006

TheAnswer said:
LOL ATD Last night, I was scrolling thru after Automator added [adb/ps] or [adb/ot] to the Adobes, and just sighed, realizing that I had to select all the ITC fonts, have Automator delete the ITC and the space, then change [adb/ps] to [adb/itc/ps] and [adb/ot] to [adb/itc/ot].

Still not sure if I should put all the Garamonds, etc together or not yet. Leaning that way, though.

Now if someone hasn't already, someone needs to create a program that can examine each font file or pull from a centralized source of information on style, designer name, names of similar fonts, date, country of origin and other info (maybe even emotional catagories like "playful") and add it to the spotlight meta data of each file.

Then I'd be organized.

That would be a great program. I always thought that one that could tell you what type face it was by just looking at jpeg of a few letters would be helpful too.

iGav · Aug 29, 2006

ATD said:
iGav it just occurred to that if you got a design assistant to do the work for you, you could never be sure it was EXACTLLY RIGHT, could you?

This is true... I think what I REALLY need, is someone with more experience, a professional... someone that already has a well organised font collection and thus can lead by example.

Not busy are you???

Anyway... FontExplorer X has a bit of an appetite doesn't it

I've just gone from a smidgen under 26,000 to a whisker over 19,000.

I think even a gimp.... I mean design assistant would do a better job than that. heh.

ATD · Aug 29, 2006

iGav said:
This is true... I think what I REALLY need, is someone with more experience, a professional... someone that already has a well organised font collection and thus can lead by example. Not busy are you???

I had way too much fun doing my type collection. I would feel guilty robing you of that pleasure, it just wouldn't be fair.

BTW For comparison it took me about 2 weeks (80 hours) to test, clean, fix (or toss), throw out dupes, categorize, rename and print out a type book. That was for 12,000 fonts. Maybe with Automator you could get there faster.

How do you organise your fonts

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