Your organization's brand is more than just a logo or a color palette—it's the identity that shapes how customers perceive and connect with your business.
Every branded messaging asset contributes to your brand identity.
However, without a structured system in place, keeping these assets organized can quickly become overwhelming, leading to inconsistencies that dilute your brand's impact.
Are you responsible for managing brand assets at your organization? Then this is for you!
Sign up for a free trial of CorelDRAW to learn how to better create and manage impactful brand assets.
What is a brand asset?
Brand assets are the elements that set a brand apart from all others and make it instantly recognizable.
They play an important role in brand strategy.
Building cohesive brand assets across all mediums ensures brand recognition and engagement.
When every touchpoint, from social media to packaging, feels connected, people immediately know who you are and what you stand for.
Brand assets can be both visual and non-visual:
- Visual assets: Logos, typography, color palettes, icons, graphics, mascots, and other components all contribute to a brand's visual recognition.
- Non-visual assets: Voice, tone, values, mission statements, songs, and jingles can be just as identifiable and memorable as visual assets.
- Digital assets: Digital files like images, documents, audio, and videos exist in the digital space and are used across various channels.
Branding and the associated assets help organizations stand out in a sea of competition and foster powerful brand recognition.
8 types of brand assets to include in your brand kit and brand asset management system
While every brand is unique, the types of brand assets a brand manager needs to create and manage are fairly universal.
They include (but are not limited to) the following:
1. Logos
Logos are a brand's first impression, capturing its identity and tone.
Utilize vector design to ensure a logo's elements are scalable, precise, and consistent across all mediums whether on a billboard, business card, or smartphone.
2. Color palettes
A brand's color palette is a primary element of creating brand recognition.
Ensuring that your brand's color palette is clearly defined and readily accessible across mediums, formats, and software tools is a key part of building a brand asset management system.
3. Fonts and Typography
Typography reflects the tone of your brand.
A traditional typeface can express a legacy, classic, or sophisticated impression, while a modern typeface exudes innovation or something new and exciting.
Choosing typography that is easy to read and reflects the brand's personality is key.
4. Imagery
Images tell a brand's visual story.
Brand images in the form of photos, AI-generated images, graphics, icons, or illustrations created with graphic design software are used across channels to amplify a brand's identity.
5. Brand voice or brand guidelines
Brand voice or brand guidelines cover the language and tone an organization uses.
Brand guidelines may include a style guide, examples of proper tone or voice, and other messaging elements that a copywriter or marketer can use to “speak” like the brand.
6. Icons
Having a brand icon or set of icons that can be used for various applications ensures visual cohesion across platforms.
7. Templates
Pre-designed templates for various types of marketing collateral such as flyers, brochures, print mail pieces, email, and social media posts can save teams time and effort as well as help maintain consistency across formats.
8. Mission and value statements
Your organization's mission or statement of purpose serves as a “true north” or guidance. The mission statement informs the rest of the brand assets and overall presence and aims to define your brand's meaning to your audience.
What is brand asset management and why is it important?
Brand asset management (BAM) ensures all brand elements are organized, stored, and accessible.
A BAM system functions as the hub of brand elements.
It ensures that assets like logos, fonts, brand guidelines, and resources are readily available in the sizes and file types needed, and that they are up to date.
This is how a brand asset management system ensures consistent brand representation across every marketing and communication initiative.
Some of the primary reasons that brand management is so important include:
Consistency
Having a centralized system where teams across the organization access the most current version of assets enhances brand representation across all channels.
Efficiency
Teams save time and energy when they don’t have to hunt around for brand asset files or have to create new versions on a regular basis.
Collaboration
A robust workflow that includes easy access to brand assets across teams speeds up processes and reduces errors.
Customer experience
Customers should experience a unified, cohesive experience at every touch point with your brand. Making it simple for relevant teams or users to access the correct helps enable that.
Scalability
Establishing brand consistency is challenging as an organization grows and more teams interact with and are responsible for deploying brand assets. A solid brand asset management system scales with the business without losing integrity.
Brand asset management or BAM is the strategy and process(es) behind managing all the brand assets to maintain brand consistency. Brand asset management tools or digital asset management (DAM) is the actual system BAM uses. A DAM is the platform or technology that stores and organizes all digital assets.
What is a DAM and why does your team need one?
Design and marketing teams need to stay organized and focused when creating and deploying branded content.
This involves streamlining workflows, following a careful creative review process, and using assets maintained in a well-thought-out BAM system filled with properly formatted, updated brand assets.
That BAM system can be built within a digital asset management platform or DAM.
Using a DAM further streamlines workflows while ensuring your brand is correctly represented across every channel.
Digital asset management platforms are centralized systems for storing share brand assets. Updates to a DAM are reflected in real-time, speeding up production time while reducing errors.
Like a well-designed architecture, powerful branding demands robust systems and tools to optimize operations. A comprehensive brand asset management system (including a DAM) enhances brand integrity and scalability.
Using these tools upholds brand standards and enables your brand to stand out from the competition.
Start planning brand asset management system with CorelDRAW
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Meet the expert: Shahd Bekhit
Shahd Bekhit is a Product Marketing Manager for CorelDRAW, bringing a deep passion for design and creativity to her role. With a keen eye for aesthetics and a love for design in all its forms—ranging from graphic design to interior design—she is dedicated to helping marketers, designers, and businesses unlock their creative potential. Shahd combines her expertise in marketing with her artistic sensibility to showcase how CorelDRAW empowers users to bring their ideas to life.