Backups and versions

Back up your work! and save versions! Backups are not quite the same as versions, but both are important.

Backups

Keep backups: copies of your files that reside on different physical devices. A good backup plan involves duplicating your work across at least three different storage devices, kept in two separate locations. For example:

1. Laptop
2. USB flash drive
3. Dropbox

Versions

Also, save versions of your files as they progress so that you can return to a previous stage of work if it turns out that the earlier approach was better, and so that you can show your process.

You might keep versions by numbering files:

• project v1.ai
• project v2.ai
• project v3.ai

Or by putting dates on files:

• project 2018-01-15.ai
• project 2018-01-18.ai
• project 2018-01-22.ai

Websites

Remember, are a closely interdependent collection of HTML, CSS, image, and (perhaps) JavaScript files. None of these files is particularly useful by itself. When you make backups or versions of a website, keep a copy of the entire project folder. You can ZIP-compress the folder if you’d like to keep your hard drives tidy.