The Shade Method

These are the principles and practices that govern how we built Shade and how to use Shade the way we intended for it to be used.

Principles

Empower Your Story

Focus on telling your story, don’t be undermined by the software you use. Any hiccup of waiting, slowness, or error is an impact on a creator’s storytelling.

Automate the Mundane

The mundane, such as file transfer, uploading and downloading, tagging, should be eliminated from the creative workflow. Teams have important things to focus on.

Keep Consistent Nomenclature

Workspaces are workspaces. Drives are drives. Whatever you define your structure to be, stick with it and maintain consistency.

Build a Paradigm, Not a Product

Products are stationary and stagnant. Paradigm’s shift and adapt to the customer’s needs. Build a system that scales with the company and introduces complexity as needed, not upfront.

Any security you don’t know is a security threat

Share your files sparingly, your files and assets are your greatest asset, be cognizant and aware of who you are sharing and what files you are sharing. Practice least access principles by restricting drives and workspaces. Remove guests after specific times and dates based on work duration.

The Modern File System

It’s not about the location, it’s about the file

The modern file system should help you quickly answer who has access to what file in what context and what location. It should streamline retrieval, sharing, and access regardless of the location of the asset.

Set abstractions for daily work, prioritize searchability for the future

The modern file system is as good as you configure it. Keep clean search indices so that you can find what you need. Avoid duplicate files and folder structures, transfer files that you don’t need into archive stores and backup systems. Prioritize a cleanly workspace so that your team is optimized to tell the stories it needs to tell.

Work like you’re in an office together

A team is built around collaboration. The modern file system should feel like you are working in an office together despite being in different places. Whether it’s permission management, file sharing, or unified search. The files should feel like they’re plugged into your computer.

A file system that evolves with you

The file system isn’t a stagnant piece of tech, it’s something that accumulates over time. The more files, the more important it is to evolve and understand your files so you never lose an asset again. It should recommend you what you need and automate the mundane, so you can focus on your creative endeavors.

Creative Storytelling

Share with Inheritance

Sharing should be done in an inheritance method so that permissions are inherited and properly managed. Sharing should be done securely and should be done on a least-privilege paradigm so that only the people who need that file have access to it.

Manage Projects

Projects should be created at the drive or folder level. But be consistent in how your system is structured. Easily move items between drives for different purposes.

Create Delightful Delivery Experiences.

Delivery to your clients should be inspiring and moving. Build delightful client experiences that help them tell their story.