Edward Boatman • May 9th
Building a strong brand starts with having a consistent identity by which people can recognize your brand. Think about the iconic simplicity of Apple products and commercials or the classic colors and design of the McDonald’s logo — these are examples of brands that have become instantly recognizable all over the world.
A brand library is one of the keys to building a strong brand. Effective branding starts with consistency, and keeping all your assets in one place makes it easy for everyone to access and use the same assets.
So, what is a brand library and how can you create one for your brand? For that matter, do you even need a brand library? Let’s do a deep dive into brand libraries, how they work, and how they can empower your brand to grow and succeed.
A brand library is a library that contains all the digital files you use for your brand. This can include images, videos and other types of files. Storing all of these files in a centralized location makes it easier for everyone in your organization to stay on the same page in terms of branding. You can even share your brand library with third-party advertisers, social media managers, and anyone else who might create something that represents your brand.
Think of a brand library as a shared storage facility for your brand assets. All your files are organized within your brand library. It helps anyone who has access to that library to quickly find what they’re looking for whether it’s a logo, typography, or a color palette. When you make changes to the file by updating assets or removing them, it’s updated for everyone who has access to that library.
An effective brand library should make it easy to organize and quickly locate files. When storing files, adding additional information like tags, categories, and metadata can make it easier for people to find what they’re looking for via search.
A brand asset is any asset — typically a digital file — you use as part of your branding. Logos are probably the most commonly used brand assets, but these assets can also include things like your brand name, color palette, slogans and taglines, sounds and songs, brand guidelines, and more.
Making your brand assets available helps you maintain a level of consistency that helps with branding. When you’re using the same recognizable logos, taglines, and color palettes across various media and marketing channels, people are going to recognize your brand from those assets alone.
Your brand asset library will change and evolve with time, which is why cloud-based libraries are so beneficial. You never know when you’re going to overhaul your brand and update your logo and color palette, but you need to make sure everyone in your organization is on the same page. When you update a cloud-based brand library, everyone can see the changes you made instantaneously.
Every brand is different, so you might be wondering if you even need a brand library. The answer depends on how important consistency is when it comes to brand management.
Brand libraries are a key resource for most brands because maintaining consistency across various channels is such an important part of brand recognition. A neatly organized brand library makes it easy for everyone to quickly find and grab the resources they need to create social media posts, marketing emails, and more. When you’re conveying a consistent message with consistent branding across every channel, it’s easier for people to recognize your brand and what it represents.
On the other hand, brand libraries aren’t crucial for every organization. For smaller brands where brand management and recognition aren’t top priorities, or generally lie with one or two employees, it’s easier to maintain consistency and a central source of truth.
Let’s use a plumbing shop in a small town as an example. Locals probably know about your shop and have seen your company vehicles around town. They may recall seeing your brand around town in their day-to-day travels, or may hear about you from a social media post on a local community page. This is where your customers are coming from. You don’t need a library full of digital assets to make sure you’re maintaining the same brand voice.
Now, let’s say you own a plumbing supply store in a larger city. You have a lot more competition, and a significant portion of your sales may come from customers in other cities or states. If you have an online storefront and connect with customers through social media and other digital channels, a brand library can help you keep your message and branding consistent so customers recognize your brand.
Lingo makes creating a brand asset library simple, so there’s no reason not to have one unless you absolutely don’t need it.
Brand libraries are an excellent way to organize and store digital assets, but creating and maintaining brand libraries can be a lot of work. If you’re still not convinced, check out some of the benefits of brand libraries below.
Consistent branding is the biggest benefit of storing digital assets in a brand library. Some of the biggest and most successful brands have been successful because of how instantly recognizable they are. From iconic logos like the McDonald’s golden arches to the legendary “Just Do It” tagline from Nike, consistency has helped to propel some of the biggest brands.
When all your assets are neatly organized in a brand library, they can be used for everything from websites and marketing emails to social media posts and product design. Since all your content across every channel uses the same graphics, colors, fonts, and other key design elements, your brand is instantly more recognizable to consumers.
Whether you’re designing a brochure to attract potential customers or creating short video ads, streamlining the content creation process is one of the best ways to save time and money.
A brand asset library makes it easy to streamline content creation because all the essential pieces are neatly organized and easy to access. Let’s say someone from your marketing team is creating a simple ad for your products or services. Without a brand library, your marketing team would have to pull the latest available version of your logo and other brand assets from other recent projects. If you recently updated your logo or another brand asset, your marketing team will use outdated assets.
With a brand asset library, your marketing team — or any other team — can quickly grab key assets to streamline the content creation process. Brand libraries allow you to search for assets by file name, tags, and metadata, and you can quickly convert those assets to any format to use for your next project.
Time is money, especially when you’re paying a team of professionals to create graphics or digital ads. With a brand library, your teams can work smarter, not harder.
You want people to recognize your brand as professional, and that means avoiding the small mistakes that brands often make. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is using non-approved assets for products or key marketing materials.
When your graphics and marketing teams are pulling outdated digital assets from past projects to reuse them, there’s a good chance those assets aren’t approved for use according to your brand guidelines. If you suddenly send out an email or release an infographic on social media using a logo or color palette that’s several years old, it can reflect negatively on your brand. Plus, you increase the chances that the user considers this as spam or a phishing attempt and discredits the communication altogether.
Including only approved assets in your brand guidelines prevents people from using non-approved assets.
Scalability is one of the most important things to focus on if you want to grow your brand over time. Whether you’re choosing an IT service provider or outsourcing customer service, you need to know that the business solutions you’re using can scale with your business as it grows.
An effective brand library supports scalability because you don’t have to make any changes to your brand library when you’re adding new team members or outsourcing a project to a third party. As long as you have an up-to-date brand library that includes all the key assets, you can simply share your brand library with new team members or third parties.
Brand libraries are also easy to update, which means you can change and expand your brand library as your brand assets change or increase in number.
You could store all of your brand assets in a folder that everyone has access to, but that’s not as simple as using a brand library. While a simple folder can act as a centralized storage location for your brand assets, it’s a lot harder to locate those brand assets when they’re in a basic folder. Plus, folder systems like Google Drive and Dropbox are more rigid and inflexible, meaning you must conform to their limitations, rather than allowing flexibility to address your needs.
Storing your assets in a brand library makes it easy for people to navigate your assets and find what they’re looking for. You can add tags and metadata so team members can quickly find brand assets using the search function. You can also break everything down into individual sections to make it easier to navigate.
The less time your teams have to spend searching for logos and other assets, the more energy they can focus on content creation.
Your brand library is the guideline for everything you do as a brand. Whether you’re creating marketing materials, designing a product or updating your website, you want your brand to look its best.
Sometimes it’s nice to have designers add a personal touch to your product or website, but using a brand library makes it easier to create content that’s just as polished as everything else on your website or social media accounts.
It’s easy enough to understand the basics and benefits of brand libraries, but how are they actually used? In this section, we’ll take a look at some common use cases for brand libraries.
As your organization continues to grow, the number of teams — and the size of teams — also grows. An effective brand library is one of the best ways to make sure everyone is on the same page no matter what team they’re on.
When you onboard new team members, you can share your brand library with them to make sure they have access to the latest assets. Since everyone has access to the same library, members of different teams can easily collaborate using the same set of resources.
Your brand library can even include your brand guidelines, so new team members can get a deeper understanding of your brand before creating content for you.
Marketing is one of the biggest keys to success in any industry. From social media ads to banner ads and everything in between, your brand library is used to ensure your marketing and advertising is consistent across every channel.
Branding is a huge part of your marketing campaign — from the logos, fonts and colors you use to the way you convey your message. An accessible brand library ensures everyone has access to the resources they need to create ads that are consistent with your brand.
An effective brand library is a great resource when it comes to in-house collaboration, but it’s even more valuable when you’re collaborating with a third party. When you’re working with people outside your organization, you need to make sure the content they create or services they provide align with your brand.
Sharing your brand library is a simple way to make sure any third party you’re working with is on the same page. When everyone has access to your brand assets, everything from the graphics you create to the customer service you provide can align with your brand.
Keeping stakeholders in the loop is one of the most important aspects of running a business, and brand guidelines help with that. Along with your logos, fonts and color palettes, you can also include your brand guidelines in your brand library. If stakeholders have a question about why something was designed a particular way or why your brand uses a certain voice or tone, they can refer to the brand guidelines to get a better understanding.
Your brand guidelines (and brand library) should be shared with all stakeholders to keep them in the loop.
Brand libraries look different for every brand, but there are some key elements you’ll find in almost every brand library. Let’s take a look at some of the most common elements of a brand library.
Your logo is the single biggest thing that makes your brand recognizable to consumers. Think about some of the biggest brands you know — you can probably picture those logos immediately. At the very minimum, your brand library should include the primary version of your logo that you use across most channels. If you have any alternative versions of your logo, you should include those too.
Logos are only one aspect of branding. From The Godfather to Disney, so many fonts are instantly recognizable to anyone who’s familiar with the brand. Even if you’re not using custom fonts for your brand, your brand library should include any fonts you use as well as some basic guidelines specifying when and where to use each font.
Also, it is helpful to include the fonts downloadable ZIP files in your Typography section. This helps all members ensure they are accessing the correct fonts and keeps them from having to find them on their own.
Any other graphics your brand consistently uses should be included in your brand library. This includes things like lettermarks and monograms, mascots, combination logos, and abstract logos. Charts and other infographics can also be included here.
Videos are essential assets for some brands. These videos could be something simple, like a short video of someone using your product or service. These videos can be used to create longer video content or converted to a GIF.
You should include your brand guidelines in your brand library. Brand guidelines help keep your stakeholders up to date with the decisions you make, and internal and external teams can refer to those guidelines to guide content creation.
Creating a brand library may seem like a lot of work, but it’s relatively simple once you’ve created your brand assets. With Lingo, you can quickly create a brand library using all your key assets. These assets are conveniently organized by usage, and you can add as many assets as you want.
You can add, remove, or edit assets if you decide you want to make a change. When team members access your brand library, they can search for files by tags and download those files in their chosen format.
With custom branding and custom domains, it’s easy to connect your brand and brand library to make your library look and feel like it belongs to your brand.
Consistency is one of the biggest keys to successful branding, and that starts with having a brand library and guidelines that internal and external teams have access to.
With Lingo, creating a custom brand library for your brand has never been easier. You can customize your brand library with your logo, colors, and fonts and access your library with a custom domain. With automatic file conversion, Lingo automatically generates alternative file types for every asset.
Contact us to book a demo and discover how Lingo can help you boost your brand.