The size of an organisation can impact this decision. A small company may be able to make do using design tools such as Illustrator, InDesign, or even Canva. That’s because they may only have a few dedicated members of staff that know the brand inside-out. However, as an organisation grows, the more useful a brand management tool can become.
Why use a brand management platform over a design tool?
Here are four big benefits to using a brand management platform compared to standard design tools.
Your brand’s identity is safe in everyone’s hands
As we mentioned previously, a brand management platform helps you maintain brand consistency across branded materials produced by other teams. How? By controlling the core elements of your brand from the off. For example, typography, colour, imagery, placement of elements and much more.
Avoid the minefield of software issues and multiple licences.
We all know that traditional design tools like Adobe Creative Cloud aren’t cheap. If you only need one or two licences then it won’t break the bank, however, as your team grows, or people start to work remotely, things can get expensive and complicated quickly.
As these tools update regularly the software becomes more advanced, which means your team may need higher-specification computers to run them. If you need to replace the whole team’s tech, then you may have to kiss part of your budget goodbye.
A brand management tool allows you to have one centrally-hosted platform, allowing everyone to log on from wherever they are, without the need for extra licences. As it’s hosted online, your team will be able to access the tools without the need to constantly update their software.
No training required
For most designers, navigating through design tools is a breeze, however, for non-designers, opening up one of these tools can be daunting. We’ve all been there, sitting in front of a blank screen thinking ‘how do I even start?’.
If you want to allow the wider team to take on creative duties it may take your designers months to get everyone up-to-speed on these complex tools. What about staff turnover? Who’ll train the new recruits? Even when team members know the basics, we guarantee they’ll spend time googling how-to’s, watching YouTube tutorials, and nagging your poor design team for help.
This isn’t the case with brand management tools. Most of these are simple and easy to use which should be intuitive enough for your team to navigate in no time. Teams will be creating artwork and accessing your brand assets in minutes.
Allow your design team to do what they do best
Asking a professional designer to amend the text on a business card or an email footer is akin to asking a top chef to make beans on toast. Sure, they can do it, but imagine what they could be doing with their time if you knew how to make these amends yourself.
OK, so it’s not a perfect analogy, but the point still stands. Your designers don’t want to spend time on quick and easy tasks that other team members could be taking care of.
By using a brand management tool, you can spread the simpler design tasks around the team.
In fact, creative teams are so busy carrying out endless small tasks that almost 20% of organisations state that their content requests are taking three or more weeks to fulfil or aren’t being accommodated at all. (Lucidpress).