Image management: How to manage company images in 2025

Businesses generate and accumulate more content than ever before. The digital asset management (DAM) market is projected to grow by 14% from 2024 to 2029, and many brands are realizing that managing their images efficiently is no longer a luxury — it’s a necessity.

Challenges in image management

Teams often struggle with disorganization, inconsistent branding, and a lack of accessibility when it comes to image management.

Disorganization

Without a solid image management system, assets are often labeled haphazardly: Missing categories, no ability to filter, and random file names make it impossible to find visuals using keywords. This disorganization makes it hard for teams to use brand-approved images, and people waste time searching through drives or emailing correct files back and forth.

Inconsistent branding

If your employees don’t know where to look for images, they might use stock photos or the next best file they find on their desktop — which could be outdated or not on brand. Without oversight, your visuals are more likely to be used inconsistently and face issues like poor resolution, incorrect cropping, or distorted coloring.

Lack of accessibility

Teams that lack an image management system store visuals across several locations — from someone’s private folders to restricted department drives. This lack of accessibility dampens productivity, as your employees can’t work with the relevant files.

Benefits of effective image management

Improving brand consistency

One of the key benefits of using a robust image management system — like a DAM — to manage your files is that it’s a single source of truth. All your visuals are in an organized space where they can be labeled, categorized, and linked to your brand guidelines, templates, and other assets.

Having your brand guidelines and templates in the same location as your images helps team members create, edit, or distribute assets. For example, if one of your product folks doesn’t know how to crop a photo for a landing page, they can refer to the guidelines or work with a pre-made template with correctly sized placeholders.

Uber, for instance, recognized the need for a unified hub for its assets so everyone could create consistent on-brand materials. After adopting Frontify, Uber centralized all its files and drove more user engagement to the branding hub.

Enhancing collaboration and workflow efficiency

An image management system boosts collaboration and efficiency by saving all digital files to a centralized location rather than in personal folders. When someone needs to share an asset, they can easily access the platform, tag the user, download the picture, and send the file or a link.

For example, Nationwide sought Frontify to improve shared access to brand resources, give real-time feedback on assets, and reduce bottlenecks to speed up workflows.

Increasing image accessibility and searchability

With a robust system, your teams can ​​categorize images into organized libraries. By setting up libraries for different marketing campaigns, product lines, or departments, you can make it easier for everyone to find the right assets quickly.

When Vodafone adopted Frontify to centralize its assets, the company enabled over 3,400 registered users across departments and locations to collaborate on the Vodafone DAM and access the latest on-brand materials.

Plus, with most image management systems, users can improve the searchability of a file by adding detailed metadata when uploading it. Metadata, such as “date” or “department name,” helps teams structure their libraries in a consistent format.

Driving more control over image usage and distribution

With an image management system, you can set up rules about who can access what. For example, some DAMs allow you to give granular access down to individual files, whereas others enable more broad control by permitting or limiting the use of entire libraries. Some companies restrict access to sensitive product launch images only to the marketing and product experts while allowing sales to view but not edit or download the content.

Advanced DAM solutions, such as Frontify, even allow you to configure permissions based on role, department, or external partner, ensuring that everyone uses assets correctly and in alignment with brand guidelines.

Types of image management systems and how to choose the best for you

DAM systems are not the only solution for image management. Depending on your workflow and file volume, other types may work better for your team.

Digital asset management system (see Frontify)

A digital asset management (DAM) system is a centralized platform to keep and manage all your images, videos, documents, PDFs, and templates.

Robust DAM solutions like Frontify have advanced functionalities to categorize assets, tag them with metadata, control access, keep all versions updated, and integrate with brand guidelines. These features and functions help you keep your content and publications consistent no matter who creates them.

A DAM works well for large marketing and creative teams and enterprises that manage a high volume of digital assets and maintain strict brand consistency. For companies that don’t handle a lot of files or require extensive branding or asset management functionalities, DAM systems can be unnecessarily complex and costly.

File management and cloud storage solutions (see Google Drive and Dropbox)

Cloud storage solutions save your assets remotely rather than on your computers or servers. Many companies have shared online drives where users upload, store, and share files with basic organization features like folders, names, and tags.

These tools are suitable for small to mid-sized teams, freelancers, and businesses that need a simple and cost-effective way to store and share files without advanced features. Large enterprises that require sophisticated digital asset management, enhanced search capabilities, or strict control over brand consistency may find these solutions too limited.

Photo organizing (see Adobe Bridge)

Photo organizing tools are specialized software for photographers and creatives to help manage, organize, and access extensive image collections. Functionalities such as batch renaming, metadata editing, previewing, and basic categorization make it easier to organize and access images quickly.

These platforms are best for photographers, designers, and creatives who work with large volumes of images and need powerful tools to manage, organize, and share their photos.

For businesses that prefer broader digital asset management features — such as integration with brand guidelines or the ability to manage various file types — photo organizing tools may be too narrow in scope.

5 best practices for managing your company’s images

Effectively managing your company’s images keeps your brand consistent, accessible, and adaptable across all touchpoints. These best practices will help you maintain a unified brand identity, save time, and reduce costly errors as you scale and evolve.

1. Create clear image guidelines and standards

Image guidelines and standards help you maintain a consistent brand identity on all channels. Team members know how to create and use assets that align with your visual identity.

Without direction, people might use images that vary in quality, style, or branding, leading to a fragmented presence that can distract audiences and weaken your impact. For example, when your social team shares bright imagery, but your website content team prefers more neutral tones, people who visit your website from your social pages might be confused.

Follow these tips to create intuitive guidelines for your employees:

• Use existing guidelines as a framework: Build on your company’s current brand guidelines — which likely already include details on logos, colors, and typography — to create image instructions that align with your overall standards.

• Set precise requirements: Specify image dimensions, file formats, and resolution for different platforms. For example, determine that all website visuals should be 1200x800 pixels in JPEG format at 72 dpi, while print images should be at least 300 dpi in CMYK format.

• Include specific rules around image editing: Details on approved filters, color corrections, and cropping techniques result in consistent and on-brand visuals. For example, you might decide that all product photos should be edited to enhance brightness and contrast but avoid overly dramatic filters that alter the product’s true colors.

• Create guidelines for different channels: Specifics for social media, email marketing, and print ensure a harmonized appearance across touchpoints. For instance, you may require your Instagram posts to be edited with a particular filter, while people have to choose specific imagery (e.g., nature visuals or bold colors) for website banners.

• Provide examples: Make guidelines more actionable with examples that illustrate the correct image use. For instance, show a side-by-side comparison of an on-brand visual next to an off-brand asset that doesn’t meet the standards.

Establishing a foundation with instructions and standards makes it easier to expand and refine your image strategy as your brand grows.

2. Organize and update your image management system

Keeping up-to-date and well-organized image libraries streamlines workflows and reduces the risk of errors. Conversely, an outdated or chaotic library can lead to accidental use of obsolete visuals, a slowdown of projects, and compromised brand consistency.

Here’s how to effectively structure your image management system:

• Follow clear naming conventions: Consider including details such as the project name, date, and version number when labeling images. For example, use a format like CampaignName_Date_Version.jpg (e.g., SpringSale_2024_v1.jpg).

• Establish a logical folder structure: Simplify image searches with categories — campaigns, products, events, or channels. For instance, you could have main folders for each campaign, with subfolders for social media, web, and print assets.

• Conduct regular audits: Review your image library periodically to check that all files align with current brand guidelines and are properly organized. Review and remove outdated images or archive them in a separate location.

Taking a proactive approach to organizing your images supports efficiency and brand consistency across all projects.

3. Train all team members

Teach your team members how to access, use, and manage your images according to your company’s standards and best practices (i.e., consistently naming pictures and tagging metadata). Show employees where to find image guidelines and emphasize that they should follow them every time they create an asset or content with a visual.

You can offer more in-depth insights:

• Provide platform-specific training: Train employees on your DAM system or image management tools to familiarize them with the features and functions. Offer tutorials, demos, workshops, or onboarding sessions that center on uploading, searching, categorizing, and accessing images.

• Offer ongoing refreshers: Schedule sessions to update employees on system changes or new functionalities to keep everyone aligned and prevent gaps in understanding as tools evolve.

• Designate power users: Ask a few experienced team members to act as “image management champions” who can assist others with questions and reinforce standards.

Trained employees will have the skills and know-how to maintain brand consistency.

4. Add metadata for better searchability

Accurate and reliable metadata allows people to quickly find relevant images by searching criteria like keywords, usage rights, file type, or specific tags. This helps reduce time spent searching and ensure that visuals are correctly used — especially in large-scale projects or across multiple departments​.

Your DAM likely offers fields for various metadata types. Share with your team how to add metadata and encourage them to label assets consistently so that it becomes easy to locate files through filters and search functions.

Here are a few common types of metadata to tag images:

• Descriptive metadata: Include titles, descriptions, and relevant keywords to help people search for assets based on specific campaigns, themes, or content, such as “winter product launch” or “hero banner image.”

• Technical metadata: Add information like resolutions, file types, and dimensions. Teams needing specific formats (e.g., print or web) can filter images based on technical specifications to pick the correct file type for each channel.

• Usage rights: Tag images with information about licensing and permissions to avoid misuse and ensure everyone works with visuals only where and when they’re permitted.

Tagging your files with relevant metadata creates a more efficient, searchable image library that enables everyone on your team to quickly locate relevant assets.

5. Monitor analytics to understand image use and performance

Tracking analytics helps you evaluate how your images are being used, which visuals are performing well, and which areas can be improved. Analytics reveal the content that resonates most with your audiences while highlighting incorrect or inconsistent assets. With this information, your teams make better data-driven decisions, improve strategies, and choose the most effective approach for each channel.

Here’s how you can start tracking analytics:

• Set up a tracking system: Take advantage of functions within your DAM to keep an eye on image views, downloads, and shares. Customize analytics dashboards that provide data on how and where assets are used.

• Regularly monitor image use: Find out which images are most frequently downloaded or chosen for campaigns. If certain assets are underused or misused, determine why. For example, some files might be hard to locate or might not align with brand guidelines.

• Schedule regular reviews: Go over content performance data to refine your image library and adjust your creative strategy. Periodic reviews ensure that your best-performing assets are consistently used while underperforming ones​ can be optimized.

Find out if a DAM is the right image management system for you

For teams handling large volumes of digital assets or working across multiple departments, a DAM may be the most efficient solution for image management. If you’re ready to take control of your brand’s visual content and explore how a DAM solution could work for you, read our guide to digital asset management or request a Frontify demo today.