Creative pattern

Status: 🟠 work in progress.
This document is subject to change. Feedback is welcome.
Last updated: 2024-07-03. Version: 0.0.1.

Problem description

When you -- individually, or as an organisation -- produce 'creative output', it is reasonable to expect that you will, over time, produce more than 100 things.

This breaks the standard Johnny.Decimal structure, which does not allow for more than 10 areas or categories, or more than 100 IDs.

Creative inputs

It is useful to have a library of 'creative inputs'. These are artefacts that you might use in any project.

We define a standard area.

80-89 Library of creative inputs

This is area 80-89 so it is pushed to the 'end' of your system. By doing so, we can standardise this number range across the maximum number of systems.

You are free to use categories 10-79 for the rest of your business.

If you would prefer to use this area at a different number, e.g. 30-39, please do so.

A library

The term 'library' was chosen deliberately. Once established, libraries do not change much. Yes, new books are added, but not at the rate that they were at the start.

Categories

This area follows the standard Johnny.Decimal pattern, and contains the following categories.

81 Design elements

Purpose: where we store external artefacts, like typefaces, or ephemeral things, like colour palettes.

82 Words, text

Purpose: where we store re-usable words, text, or other prose.

83 Images, drawings, diagrams, screenshots

Purpose: where we store re-usable images that are not photographs.

84 Photos

Purpose: where we store re-usable photographs.

85 Audio, music

Purpose: where we store re-usable audio, music, or anything else that primarily goes in your ears.

86 Video, animation

Purpose: where we store re-usable video, animation, or any other moving pictures.

87 Platform-specific instructions

Purpose: where we store details that help us create for or load up to specific platforms; e.g. what video format does YouTube prefer?# Creative outputs

It is the creative outputs which might exceed 100 in number. These are the projects you produce: the product brochure, marketing video, and so on. Each is a 'job' in creative agency parlance.

We define a standard area.

90-99 Portfolio of creative outputs

This follows area 80-89 so the two sit together at the 'end' of your system.

If you would prefer to use this area at a different number, e.g. 40-49, please do so. I do recommend that it immediately follow your library of creative inputs.

Numbering scheme

This area uses non-standard numbering.

Each output has a unique ID. Assuming 10,000 jobs is sufficient, we start at 90001 and increment by 1 each time.1

We do not use categories in this area: instead, jump straight to the job ID.

90-99Portfolio of creative outputs
   90001 First job description 2024-06
   90002 Second job description 2024-07
   ...

Naming jobs

I suggest it will be useful to put the date that the job started at the end of the title.

Year and month will be sufficient, in the format yyyy-mm. This is to help you anchor these jobs in your mind when you review them in the future.

If you have your own job number

If you're working in or for an agency, you might already have a job number.

In this case, you should use this number in place of 90001.

Standardise subfolders

You should create a standard subfolder structure. I recommend the following.

90-99Portfolio of creative outputs
   90001 First job description 2024-06
         10 Design elements
         20 Words, text
         30 Images, drawings, screenshots
         40 Photos
         50 Audio, music
         60 Video, animation
         90 Exports, finals

You will note that this mimics the category structure of 80-89.

Process

Broadly speaking, each job is as follows.

  1. You take artefacts from your library of inputs (green), as well as job-specific additional inputs (yellow) and possibly material from your portfolio of outputs (blue).
  2. You do some creative work (red).
  3. You save the output in your portfolio (blue).
  4. You identify reusable artefacts and move them to your library.
  5. Optionally, if the job was a quick one-off, you publish it without saving it.
A process flow diagram showing the flow as described above.

Example

This is our system as of 2024-07-03. We've only been using this for a few weeks but so far it feels good.

80-89Library of creative inputs
81 Design elements
81.11Berkeley Mono
81.12Our colours
81.13Nice colours for inspiration
82 Words, text
82.11Inspirational words
82.12Patreon, Ko-fi, and so on
82.13Hashtags
82.14SEO-related, summaries of pages
82.15Where our brand copy is used
82.16Johnny.Decimal style guide
82.17TikTok comment replies
83 Images, drawings, diagrams, screenshots
83.11Our logo (just the logo)
83.12Our logo on background or banner
83.13favicons
83.14Other companies' logos
83.15Stock images
83.16Lucy's drawings of JD concepts
83.17Screen grabs we make or take
83.18Combined LwL & JD logos or banners
83.19Backgrounds or banners - organised by external site
83.20Reference, example screens from social media
83.21Miscellaneous other shapes
84 Photos
84.11Photos that include one of us, or are about us or our place
84.12Photos that don't include one of us
85 Audio, music
86 Video, animation
86.11Videos that include one of us, or are about us or our place
86.12Videos that don't include one of us
87 Platform-specific instructions
87.21Facebook
87.22Instagram
87.23Linkedin
87.24TikTok
87.25Twitter
87.26YouTube
87.27Reddit
87.28Gumroad
87.29Snapchat
87.30Mastodon
87.31Threads
87.32Bluesky
90-99Portfolio of creative outputs
90 Management of library of outputs
90.01Inbox
90.03To-do & lists
90.05Templates
90001 From chaos to calm 2023-05-31
90002 New website launch announcement 2023-05
90003 Launch workbook on Gumroad 2023-07
90004 If your house looked like your file system 2023-07
90005 When a librarian needs to find something 2023-07
90006 Patreon posts 2023
90007 The Manifesto 2023-06
90008 Visualising the Teams hierarchy 2023-06
90009 What is JD? with emoji 2023-07
90010 Blog post videos
90011 Business cards for street workshop experiment 2024-03
90012 Business cards for Moo print job 2024-06
90013 Website copy proofing
90014 The freelancer problem 2023-09
90015 Workshop pre-launch video 1 2024-02
90016 Workshop pre-launch video 2 2024-04
90017 Workshop launch announcement 2024-04
90018 Workshop highlights reel 2024-06
90019 First edition stickers 2023-09
90020 Second edition stickers 2023-11
90021 Diagrams including the two ways of looking at a work project 2023-11
90022 Canberra Expo 2024-05
90023 JDSS 15.53 Aus trip 2024-07
            10 Design elements
            20 Words, text
            30 Images, drawings, screenshots
            40 Photos
            50 Audio, music
            60 Video, animation
            90 Exports, finals

Footnotes

  1. 10,000 is enough. That's one job a day every working day for 40 years. ↩

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