When I started collecting fonts I put them in a folder named Fonts with sub-folders by the year I added them, then I got a bunch - there are somewhere over 100,000 of them. (Gasp!) and started placing them by name in alpha-numeric sub-folders (1, 2, 3, - Aaa-Aab, Aac-Aad, etc).
That became a nightmare and didn’t help me find a thing unless I remembered the name.
Then I discovered PANOSE. Click here for more information.
Visual is what I am mainly interested in!
So … I started a NEW FOLDER named 1Fonts (to keep it at the head of the pack) with sub-folders for Panose and Special Collections for Dan X Solo, etc. and am still in the process of moving the fonts I REALLY LIKE into them.
My Groups go into 1Groups - for special jobs like holidays, seasons, etc. This makes it easy to Load and unload groups.