Edward Boatman • Aug 15th
Still stuck in the scroll? If you're managing logos, photos, videos, or campaign assets with folders inside folders inside folders… you're not alone.
But you're also not set up for success.
Creative teams today are producing more content than ever. Yet most still rely on outdated systems like Google Drive, Dropbox, or SharePoint. These tools were built for general file storage, not fast-paced design and marketing work. When the only way to find something is to click and scroll, productivity suffers.
If your team is constantly asking:
It’s time for a better system.
The deeper your folder trees get, the harder it is to find anything. One campaign might be in “Q3 > Retail > Paid Media > Social > Archive” while another lives in “2023 > Q4 > Promo > Drafts > Design.”
Generic tools lack visual search capabilities. Designers end up wasting time sifting through folders named "Final_Final_v3" or digging through outdated versions. And team members rely on memory or luck to find files, leading to mistakes and valuable lost time.
Ali Khan, UX Developer at Avaib, sums up the internal user experience well. "I shouldn’t need a map to find the right PNG."
Folders are great for storage but terrible for discovery. You can't see file previews. You can't filter across folders. You can’t sort by usage context or campaign.
A good digital asset system should work like your brain thinks: fast, visual, and filterable. Content and context are aligned, rather than describing how to use your company logos instructions separate from the logo itself.
When people can’t find what they need, exactly when they need it, they cause a delay. David Baum, CEO & Co-Founder at Relato, can relate to this frustration. “The marketer becomes the bottleneck. You’re stuck fielding access requests instead of building strategy.” And, that bottleneck delay may very well result in rouge creative assets, like:
That breaks your brand system and slows your team down.
Designers don’t want to guess what “Final_Final_2.ai” means. They want to see the file. Marketers want to know which version is approved, where it’s used, and if it’s downloadable or view-only.
Good asset systems make this obvious at a glance and keeps any one team from slowing the other down.
Your team isn’t just internal anymore. You might need to share:
All of them need specific assets, not your entire folder maze. Branded portals or audience-specific kits speed this up.
You don’t need to keep 12 versions of the same thing. You need to keep the latest one clearly marked and archive the rest.
A smart system makes that effortless.
Think of Kits like folders with superpowers. In Lingo, Kits are curated collections of assets grouped by purpose, campaign, or audience. A single Kit can be shared with a person and they have access to everything contained in the Kit. And, content in a Kit can appear in multiple Kits, making it easier to share the assets in the Kit with different groups of people.
For example:
They’re shareable, visual, and easy to update.
Tag assets with what they are, who they're for, and how they’re used.
Common tags might include:
Tags unlock fast filtering and remove the guesswork.
A thumbnail speaks volumes. Lingo shows visual previews of your files so designers and marketers can find what they need without opening each one.
You don’t need to tear down everything to make a change. Here's a tactical approach to transition from folder fatigue to asset clarity:
ProTip: Audit your communication channels. Track how often your team is asked in Slack, Teams, or even email for a file, a resize, or to help locate an asset. Then, multiple the number of disruptions in a single week across your team by 23. It’s reported that, on average, it takes just over 23 minutes to reengage in a task after a disruption. This is the time savings you and your team can expect once a digital asset management solution has been deployed.
A platform like Lingo gives you built-in visual previews, tagging, search, and kit-sharing. All of this without forcing your team to adapt to rigid folder rules.
Don’t overthink it. Start with:
Most DAMs, like Lingo, also have AI visual search to help search more abstract objects among other tags, like for ‘trees’ among campus buildings at Denison University.
Consistency here leads to faster search later.
Create a few core kits to start:
These become your new go-to collections.
Control who sees what. Lingo lets you build:
No more sharing full drives or individual files one at a time.
Walk your team through the new system. Emphasize search, tags, and kits. Replace outdated folder links with branded portals. Update onboarding materials for new hires.
Even the best asset management setup fails if no one uses it. Here’s how to make the change last:
Creative operations aren't just about storage. It’s about making work easier.
Lingo helps teams move beyond folder chaos.
With kits, search, visual previews, and custom portals, design teams and marketers can finally stay organized, stay on-brand, and work faster.
No more lost files. No more rogue assets. No more duplicated work.
Just one visual system that actually works for creative operations.
A: They’re built for file storage, not creative workflows. Deep folders, limited previews, and poor version control make them inefficient for fast-paced teams that need visual search alongside content and context.
A: Searchable systems with tags, visual previews, and curated kits work better for most creative and marketing teams.
A: Give them a single source of truth. Kits, brand portals, and clearly marked assets help prevent off-brand mistakes.
Lingo provides a single platform to organize, manage, and share your brand’s assets in one place. Teams spend less time fielding repetitive requests, chasing files, or fixing off-brand mistakes and more time on the creative work that actually moves your business forward.
If you want to keep your creative team healthy, engaged, and producing great work, it starts with fixing the system.
See how Lingo supports creative ops and get started with Lingo.