What are some considerations in organizing apps in the dock?

I am relatively new to Mac and OS X (4 months now). While I build my collection of preferred applications my Dock keeps on growing. It now takes about 70% of my screen width and I start to find it a bit messy. I like to keep things organised and was wondering what are common practices to do so?

I know some people organise apps in folders by category/type, but how do I do it actually?

How is the icon for such a folder selected? Can I customise it?

PS. Screenshots are welcome.
PS2. If you have any recommendations of icon sources for organising Apps into folders, that'd be helpful, too.

Solution 1:

There are lots of little application launcher utilities available, to name two Overflow and the venerable DragThing.

Personally, I prefer keyboard-based launchers like Alfred or LaunchBar.

OS X Lion will have feature called Launchpad which looks like it will be a good replacement to the dock for launching applications.

Organizing Apps in the Finder or launching them all via the Dock is rather futile, in my opinion — unless you have a very small collection of Applications…

If you're looking for folder icons, there are tons of online sources. I recommend the Iconfactory to start.

Customization: in the Finder if you use the Command Get Info in the file menu on a selected folder (also available in the right-click contextual menu), you can select the icon in the info window top-left. From there you can copy the icon resources and paste them.

So that's how you can customize the folders, copy icons from a downloaded folder source, and paste them into your new folders. Panic software produces an excellent Application for icon management that can also streamline this process called CandyBar.

Solution 2:

What I do is remove everything from your dock, but for a very few essentials.

The only things I keep in my Dock at all times is the "Download" folder. When I need to start an app, I use Spotlight. I don't mean, or want, to turn this into a Spotlight vs Quicksilver vs Butler debate -it's just what works for me.

Now, in actuality, I do have icons on my Dock often, since I always have Terminal and Safari open, along with things like the Finder and Trash (which are always there.)

I find it simple, quick (Spotlight is faster than mousing to the Dock) and tidy.

Good luck in finding something that works for you.