Rendition is a term that carries multiple meanings and interpretations, depending on the context in which it is used. At its core, rendition refers to the act or result of rendering something, whether it be a performance, interpretation, or translation.

Overall, the term “rendition” is complex and multifaceted, with its meaning varying widely depending on the context. A rendition involves the act of rendering something in a particular way, highlighting the diverse applications of this versatile term.

But let’s cover the meaning of rendition in terms of DAM and MediaValet.

Rendition Meaning and Definition

Within MediaValet, you can give users the permission to download a rendition of your original files – no matter if it’s a document, video, or image. Meaning, if you upload a PNG, your user can download that as a JPG, TIFF, EPS and more on-the-fly. Beyond customizing the file type, your user can also download the file in a custom size and in their preferred resolution. You may be wondering, what’s the value in this capability?

Why Do Renditions Matter?

The answer is two-fold. First, you’re saving storage space. Rather than uploading the same video as an MP4 and an MOV or as the original sized image, as well as a cropped one, you’re only uploading your file once.

Second, you’re allowing your user – should you give them the permission to do so – to take control of the download process. Meaning, they no longer have to use a secondary system or tool to crop or convert the file. That also means you’re eliminating the backlog of resizing and reformatting requests for your graphic team because each individual user can take ownership of on-the-fly rendering.

Rendition Best Practices

When uploading to the DAM with the rendition capabilities in mind, it’s best practice to upload the most flexible file type in the highest resolution. That way, your user can adjust the file type, as needed, and scale down the resolution or file size if they wish.

Another best practice to keep in mind is that your team should upload files without reformatting. This is especially relevant in situations where you have photographers in the field taking photos – rather than having them convert the files to a certain format or creating different file type or sized versions, have them upload as is, and have your users download the customized version they want in-app, on-the-fly.

Real-World Rendition Examples

Here are some ways that MediaValet customers are already using renditions to drive efficiencies:

Rendition Example #1: Photographer Collaboration

A contract photographer for a local university attends an on-campus event to take photos that the marketing team will use for social media posts and recruitment brochures. The photographer uploads the photos to MediaValet in their standard format, JPEG. Then, the Marketing team uses on-the-fly rendering capabilities to download relevant images as PNGs to use in the brochures and use in-app cropping to resize some images to fit the social media post dimensions.

Rendition Example #2: Client Relations

In-app cropping has an internal rule to always upload and use PNG graphics, as it’s most flexible with a transparent background. Using MediaValet’s in-app capabilities, the agency can then share out the files as whatever file type their client requests – whether that’s as EPS, JPEG, TIFF or other file types.

Rendition Example #3: Media Relations

A municipality uploads the highest resolution version of their brand videos to their MediaValet DAM. Often, they get requests from local press and media sources for video content. Using MediaValet’s rendering and sharing abilities, they’re able to share video options in low-resolution for these third-parties to view. Then, the third-parties indicate which videos they’d like to use and the municipality will re-send the selected video in high-definition.

Rendition Example #4: Sales Enablement

A marketing team at a manufacturing company uploads PPTs to MediaValet with graphics and slides they’ve built for their sales teams’ use. The sales team then self-serves the content straight from the DAM. If they’re happy with the PPT as it is, they can download it as a PDF. However, if the user needs to adjust any content on the slide, they can download the document as an editable PPT so they can make the changes.

With MediaValet’s rendering capabilities, your users will instantly be able to download the file they need, when they need it and how they need it – increasing productivity and making their workflow more efficient. And to top that, it ensures your library stays clean and easy-to-use, with a single version of every asset. Contact the MediaValet team today to get started with asset renditions.

Want to learn more about MediaValet? Take the self-guided tour here:

MediaValet is a leader in cloud-based digital asset management that helps organizations manage, organize and share their digital assets, improving productivity and increasing ROI.

The digital universe is evolving with astonishing speed. More and more creative teams are becoming accountable for managing the brand, resources and supporting a multitude of digital channels with visual content. One of the best ways of keeping up with the latest trends, best practices, and solutions is selecting a few conferences to attend, and dedicating a few days to intense learning and networking with peers.

Here, we’ve put together a list of some of the top creative conferences to attend. Let’s get to the list!

North American Creative Conferences

Adobe Max

October 26–30, 2025 // Los Angeles, CA

Being one of the largest creative conferences in North America, Adobe Max hosts 12,000 attendees and offers over 300 sessions, labs, workshops, and more. Whether you attend to perfect your skills, meet your favorite designers, or explore trends in future design, Adobe Max has something for everyone! Join your fellow graphic designers, illustrators, videographers, web and UX designers, photographers, and creative directors by registering to attend the conference!

You can subscribe to the Adobe Max newsletter here to be updated on registration and you can check out their previous Adobe Max sessions on-demand here!

Note: You can save US$600 when you sign up by April 30, 2025 to be notified when registration opens in May.

South by Southwest (SXSW)

March 7–15, 2025 // Austin, TX

The Austin-based South by Southwest is not just a conference – it’s an extravaganza! Incorporating media, design, technology, and music, this event draws attendees from all over North America and is known for being one of the most influential events of the year. SXSW allows you to learn, explore, and connect in new ways with design. Between the dynamic talk sessions, screenings, showcases and design exhibitions, be prepared to leave inspired.

Creative Pro Week

June 2 – 6, 2025 // Phoenix AZ, and Online

Taking place in Washington DC, CreativePro Week is known as one of the world’s most effective “How-to” conferences, providing sessions about layout, editing, illustration, design, production, and more! No matter if you’re just starting out or are an expert in your craft, this conference will provide the opportunity to improve or learn about design programs, see what trends are coming down the pipe, and build industry connections. Bonus! Creative Pro Week offers virtual conference passes, where you can receive access to all sessions, handouts of speaker presentations, attendee-only chat forums, and more.

Note: There is early bird pricing until April 7, 2025, and if you’re a CreativePro member you get even more of a discount. Sign up for membership here.

International Design Conference (IDC)

September 10–12, 2025 // Austin, TX

Organized by the Industrial Designers Society of America, IDC – International Design Conference is a “landmark” event that has been three years in the making. Though dates haven’t yet been announced, it will be taking place in Austin, Texas. At IDC, no matter your design background, you will have the ability to connect with fellow designers and spark discussions around common design challenges and themes.

Is your creative team spreading itself thin across the entire organization? In 2025, it doesn’t have to be like that.

Mindcamp

2025 dates TBA // Port Elgin, Canada

Mindcamp is a top choice for creatives who want to learn! This conference is like a university boot camp as it offers 5 days of courses focused on personal, professional, and organizational creativity. In addition to learning, Mindcamp offers music, dialogue sessions, and fun evening events.

Seattle Interactive Conference (SIC)

2025 dates TBA // Seattle, Washington

The Seattle Interactive Conference is great for creatives that can’t help but be fascinated by data and technology. SIC explores and celebrates the intersection of technology, creativity, and industry. It puts a spotlight on how data and technology can help creative teams make better, more intentional choices while celebrating the beauty of creative thinking. Each year, about 5000 creatives and 30 keynote speakers join this Seattle-based conference.

Circles Conference

September 22 – 26, 2025 // Grapevine, TX

This three-day Circles Conference is tailored for designers, techies, and creators as it focuses on design, illustration, creative direction, and UX design. With numerous guest speakers and workshops on art/creative direction, web and digital design, user experience, illustration, and more you’ll leave with a fresh spark of passion for your craft. Covering a variety of topics such as finding your creative identity, logo creation, and choosing change-making clients, there are endless learning opportunities. Not only that, this event is based in Grapevine, (just right outside Dallas), and is a breeze to get to!

Brand New Conference

October 23-24, 2025 // Pittsburgh, PA

A deviation from the famous UnderConsideration blog, Brand New Conference focuses on corporate and brand identity. This conference made our list, as you can expect it to be like its blog, which focuses on redesigns and new designs of some of the most influential brands in the world. With guest speakers attending from across the globe, this event will include a variety of sessions offering different perspectives, and experiences from different design environments. Tickets are on sale here.

Note: Presale tickets are available until May, 2025.

Creative Works

May 1 – 3, 2025 // Seattle, Washington

Creative Works is perfect for creatives who have the desire to make things better. This conference aims to help you break through barriers, and help you become the designer you have always wanted to be. With a handful of guest speakers who are offering their knowledge, stories of success and failure, and practical tips, you’ll leave inspired and ready to improve your craft.

UK and Australia Creative Conferences

Future of Branding Week

SOLD OUT // London, England

Future of Branding Week is the perfect choice for creatives, strategists, or anyone who is passionate about branding. Attend and learn about how leading brands in London are disrupting the industry by using new channels and evolving technologies. With mini-workshops, round-table discussions, studio visits, and more, you’ll be sure to get a taste of some of the most influential agencies in the world.

Melbourne Design Week

May 15 – 25, 2025 // Melbourne, Australia

Melbourne Design Week is Australia’s largest annual international design event and entails innovative and engaging projects are presented over an 11-day program. It covers a range of design mediums including graphic design and offers various workshops, tours, talks, exhibitions, and screenings.

Make Your Events This Year Count

Planning your own event or conference? Learn how a DAM can enhance your operations.

Are you doubling down on events this year? A digital asset management system (DAM) can be extremely valuable for keeping your content organized while planning and executing events.

Learn how bb Blanc use their MediaValet DAM to transform their live events and improve their client’s experience.

Or, check out this post to see how using a DAM can significantly improve your event planning and boost the overall performance of your events from start to finish.

The world is becoming increasingly visual – across industries, geographic locations, and platforms. To this end, it’s no surprise that marketing, sales, and other departments have turned to high-quality, visual content to attract attention and achieve business goals. In fact, visuals can increase someone’s desire to read a piece of content by 80%.

While it’s undeniable that original, visual content can contribute to tangible business results, the creation of this content can put a considerable burden on the creative department. With increased pressure to continuously release creative, well-designed visuals, it’s more important than ever to ensure this team can put its hours towards initiatives that move the needle. This means reducing any unnecessary administrative and tedious tasks.

While easier said than done, there are a few kinds of requests that are slowing down your creative team considerably – that are quick and easy to fix! Here are three we frequently hear about, and how they can be addressed with a digital asset management system (DAM).

Assets Requests

Where’s our most recent logo? Do you mind resending me the social images for our spring campaign? Which sales brochure is the most up-to-date? These are the kinds of questions your creative teams get almost daily.

When other teams don’t have access to your company’s most up-to-date campaign and brand assets, your creatives get bogged down with requests for logos, images, videos, and more. While this usually only takes a quick 5 minutes, the minutes can quickly add up – not to mention the break in their creative flow.

The fix: Aggregating your assets into a single, centralized library is the first step to reducing these kinds of requests. Small organizations, working with only a few assets, often get by using a file-sharing system, like Dropbox. Larger organizations, however, require a more advanced solution, like a digital asset management system, which can provide additional search and permission capabilities.

Some DAMs, like MediaValet, also offer the ability to make Branded Portals for frequently requested content. Using portals, creative teams can make branded, well-organized “micro-sites” for logos, campaign-specific assets, and more. They can then share the portals with departments or partners, using a public or password-protected link.

Reformatting & Resizing

Even when people do have access to assets, all too often they’re in the wrong format. Collaborative departments, like marketing, often need to send logos, print materials, digital ads, etc. to partners, tradeshow organizers, and other stakeholders – each in a specific size and format. While there are online converters and workarounds, many don’t work well or adhere to the organization’s security policies.

When this is the case, creatives are often the ones that take the brunt of these requests. In addition to slowing down your team, this can also risk the relationship between your marketing and creative teams. The creative team will be frustrated that they constantly need to make these small updates, while the marketing team will be frustrated that their project is bottlenecked by the request.

The fix: Teams outside of the creative department need to be enabled to reformat the organization’s brand assets, quickly and on-the-fly. With a digital asset management system, users can convert JPGs to PNGs, word documents to PDFs, Mp4s to MOVs, and more – all in any resolution they need! Never again will creatives need to waste their time on these small changes.

For certain use cases, cropping capabilities can also help reduce requests considerably. With an easy-to-use cropping solution, teams are able to make quick dimension and size changes without needing to ask a designer for help. For example, social media teams can quickly crop a single image to meet the optimal dimensions for each social channel.

Small Updates

All too often, the creative team is relied on to make insignificant updates to pieces of content. Whether it’s updating the contact information on a business card or changing a logo on a brochure, a significant amount of a creative’s time can be spent on activities that don’t drive much business value.

More often than not, these requests come because the other individual lacks the technology that’s needed to make the changes themselves. And with good reason – creative software can run anywhere from $10 – $30 per month. Multiply that by every person in the office, and it becomes very pricey. This challenge also increases tenfold for people that don’t have a high level of design expertise and education. While it’s not a perfect solution, it makes more financial and efficient sense to keep this software for the creative team.

The fix: Teams need the ability to make simple changes to branded content, without relying on the creative team. Templating software, enables creative teams to provide other teams with customizable templates – all without putting a significant dent in your budget. These templates don’t require any design expertise and are incredibly easy to use.

What’s more, templating software can connect directly to your DAM, making creative asset management so much simpler. Your users can make quick edits to approved digital assets without needing to leave the platforms they use already. For example, a salesperson can access a brochure in your DAM, and quickly edit the contact information to their own – all without leaving their DAM!

Get Started with MediaValet Templating

MediaValet Templating, powered by Marq allows teams to create customizable and easy-to-use templates for their team. Users can easily access templates on-demand, within MediaValet, and make changes without asking for designer support. Learn more about the new integration here.

With the overwhelming amount of video content now being produced by marketing and creative departments across many industries, there’s been substantial growth in demand for secure ways to manage these assets. Due to their size and complexity, videos are typically more challenging to store, categorize and share than other digital assets. This can significantly restrict the return on investment (ROI) organizations can gain, simply because they can’t be found or used efficiently. Keeping in mind the amount of time and money it takes to produce these kinds of marketing pieces, this represents a major gap.

Many organizations are leaning into digital asset management (DAM) solutions to get a handle on their video assets. DAM solutions help organizations manage, organize and share large amounts of video content, plus other kinds of digital assets. A DAM helps improve the discoverability of videos significantly, adding additional metadata such as categories, keywords, auto-tags and automatic transcripts and translation. It immensely improves the productivity of marketing and creative teams that are working with video content.

There are six key benefits of using a digital asset management system for your video assets:

• Centralized location,
• Enhanced discoverability,
• Streamlined video sharing,
• Automated transcription and translation,
• Reduced video duplicates, and
• Controlled access.

1. Centralized Location

Having all video assets in one, cloud-based location means that anyone in the organization can access them, no matter where in the world they’re working. This means that geographically dispersed teams and the many people now working from home don’t have to worry about accessibility or accidentally using out-of-date files. No more time spent looking through various shared folders, personal computers, or servers for raw, final and archived footage – your teams will love you for this!

2. Enhanced Discoverability

A digital asset management system improves the discoverability of your video assets, enhancing them with searchable keywords, embedded metadata (camera type, file size, etc.), custom attributes (videographer name, shooting location, etc.) and more. Video Intelligence capabilities also automatically add timestamped metadata for objects, on-screen text, people, topics and more.

3. Streamlined Video Sharing

Don’t worry about using WeTransfer, Dropbox, or having emails bounce ever again, as there are no restrictions on file size when sharing from the DAM. Users are able to send full videos—no matter the size—conveniently via email, web galleries and Branded Portals.

4. Automated Transcription and Translation

Powered by Video Intelligence, auto-generated transcriptions add another layer of searchable metadata to your videos. Quickly navigate to a specific scene or line of script with automatic transcripts created within the DAM. They can also be translated into 57 different languages and downloaded into a variety of file formats compatible with YouTube, Vimeo, and more.

5. Reduced Video Duplicates

Having duplicate video files copied across multiple folders can take up significant room on servers or individual users’ computers. When using a DAM solution for video assets, the file is only uploaded once, then tagged to multiple categories—freeing up space while ensuring proper storage and organization.

6. Controlled Access

Contrary to the user experience with cloud-based storage solutions like Dropbox or Google Drive, a DAM doesn’t take an “all or nothing” approach. DAM administrators can set up user permissions and categories specific to each department or individual’s use cases. You will have control over who can access specific folders, as well as who can download, share and delete your valuable video assets. This helps not only from a control perspective, but overall ease-of-use and searchability for your users, avoiding overwhelming people with access to too many files, or people moving files to improper locations.

Is it Time for a DAM?

The time and money it takes any organization to produce video assets is worthy of a well-thought-out solution for storing and using them. A DAM solution that offers comprehensive, sophisticated video asset management capabilities is a must for any organization working with video content, as marketing trends show those needs will only keep growing. Learn more about MediaValet as a DAM solution for your company, starting with video, and get set up for success managing all your digital assets.

MediaValet is a leader in cloud-based digital asset management that helps organizations manage, organize and share their digital assets, improving productivity and increasing ROI.

If you dabble in both UX and UI, you might have heard this familiar question: “What’s the difference between UX and UI?”

It’s an interesting question and one that can be difficult to explain in technical terms. I find one of the easiest ways to explain the difference is to use a real-life example.

Let’s Build a House: UX and UI Explained

Here’s an analogy that I found to be effective when explaining the difference between UX design and UI design.

Understanding the Residents

Let’s pretend that you’re building a house for someone. The first step is to figure out the basics. How many floors? How many bedrooms? Backyard? Basement?

The answers to these questions will vary a lot, depending on who will live in the house. If you’re a family of 4 with dogs, the ideal house may look different than if you’re an older couple with an avid gardening hobby.

In product design, this is where the role of a User Experience (UX) designer or a UX researcher starts. UX designers need to learn about who the users are in order to provide solutions and experiences that the users will find beneficial and easy to use.

Laying Out the Blueprints

After you’ve answered these questions, you can start drawing up blueprints of the house. Blueprints show the layout of the house, as well as where you expect things to be. They show where the walls will be, what the electrical plan is and how the water pipes will be laid out.

Going over the blueprint ensures that everyone is on the same page. You might even find that what you imagined the house to be is completely different than what the owners want. You may learn more about the people that will live in the house and find new constraints.

When you start with a blueprint, iterating is much faster and cheaper. Not only is building the actual house more time consuming and costly, you’d also be in big trouble if changes needed to be made!

This is the same for design. UX Designers often start with low-fidelity wireframes. These could be pen or paper sketches or simple black and white mockups to show the layout and elements. It’s important to get feedback at this stage, so you don’t run into costly reiterations in production.

Implementing the Final Touches

Once the house is on the way, you can start working on the look and feel of the house. You can create mood boards or collect inspiration on what you want the interior design of the house to be. At this point, there should be little or no changes to the foundations of the house, like knocking down the wall or deciding where the bathroom should be.

In product design, that’s where a User Interface (UI) designer comes in. UI Designers put the skin on the wireframes. They take care of the aesthetics, including font, color and illustrations. Once the design is at this stage, big changes like changing the layout should be minimal.

Working Together

In theory, the UX designer oversees figuring out more about the user and setting up the foundation, while the UI designers oversee the look and feel. In actuality, UX and UI designers often work closely together to bring the final product to fruition. Having insights into users will help UI designers make aesthetic decisions and understanding the intended look and feel.

Over the past few years, Instagram has grown from a digital library for sharing your life events, to a business platform for promoting your work and getting noticed. While this new model has jumpstarted the careers of various models and entrepreneurs, it’s also created an opportunity for designers to showcase their work and companies to find contractors they’d like to work with.

Hand-lettering and calligraphy have been no different, with amateurs and pros alike all featuring their work on their Instagram page. It’s easy to find new designers using relevant hashtags and searches, but here are some of our personal favorites (in no particular order):

Seb Lester

With over 1 million followers on Instagram, Sebastian Lester is recognized for his stunning calligraphy designs and hand-lettering of famous brand logos. Showcasing photos and videos of both hand-drawn and digital illustrations, his work offers a great mix of traditional and modern lettering. (@seblester)

Lauren Hom

A designer and letterer based in Detroit, Lauren Hom has made a name for herself for using bright colors, quirky writing styles and clever sayings. Racking up nearly 175 thousand followers on Instagram, she’s worked with leading organizations like Starbucks, Google and TIME Magazine. (@homsweethom)

Adha Firdaus

Known by his alias, Mister Doodle, Adha Firdaus is a typographer and hand-letterer from Indonesia who specializes in clothing and logo designs. With almost 60 thousand followers on Instagram, his posts are easily recognizable with their black backgrounds. (@misterdoodle)

Zachary Smith

Recognized for his awesome lettering work on rusted saws, Zachary Smith is a New York-based designer and letterer with a rustic, outdoorsy feel to his lettering. He works primarily with white and black lettering on a textured background (like tiles, bricks and chalkboards), keeping his 67 thousand followers engaged. (@zacharysmithh)

Tolga Girgin

Based in Turkey, Tolga Girgin is a letterer specialized in calligraphy and three-dimensional anamorphic lettering. Inspiring almost 165 followers on Instagram, he works with a wide variety of colors, pen types (nibs) and writing styles. (@tolgagirgin99)

Kate Pullen

Working with leading organizations like Disney, Nike and The Body Shop, Kate Pullen is a Melbourne-based letterer with a big personality and bold designs. Working on a variety of projects, ranging from clothing to greeting cards, Kate Pullen’s work is instantly recognizable with its bright colors and quirky designs. (@katepullendraws)

We hope you found a couple of new letterers to follow!

If this last year has taught us anything, it’s to expect the unexpected – and adapt quickly. As leaders in creative operations, it’s critical to invest in the success of your team, with a big focus on dexterity and agility—ensuring that they can do their jobs effectively from anywhere and in any circumstance. Understandably, the first step is taking a long, hard look at the current state of your creative operations.

What are Creative Operations?

Creative operations provide structure to the creative process within an organization, with the goal of increasing productivity, allowing teams to create content faster, and generally drive the business’ bottom line.

Why are Creative Operations Important?

According to MediaValet partner, iO Integration, creative operations cover four key responsibilities:

1. Formally defining and optimizing processes for creative production.
2. Identifying and evaluating gaps in technology to improve workflows.
3. Optimizing people, processes and technology involved with creative work.
4. Using metrics and KPIs to track and analyze operations.

The importance of these responsibilities is three-fold: Ensuring that everyone is on the same page for roles and responsibilities, tying measurable outcomes and indicators to the work that the creative team does and continually tailoring workflows so the team can run smoothly.

The Top Challenges for Creative Teams

While all of these points sound great on paper, the reality is troublesome. Despite the perceived improvement in operations, a study from InMotionNow found that creative teams are still experiencing challenges with:

• the amount of work they’re being asked to complete, and,
• the speed at which they’re expected to complete projects.

Take a moment to think about your own creative team and consider how much you’re asking them to complete—and how much time you’re giving them to complete these projects. There’s a good chance that your team is also experiencing this challenge.

Another study from AdAge also found that 75% of people don’t think they’re living up to their creative potential.

People need to feel valued, and that they’re successful at what they do. Yet, unfortunately, all signs point to creative professionals feeling overwhelmed and under-utilized. What’s clear is that despite the perception of having proper, well-run creative operations in place, there’s still a lot of work to be done to truly optimize creative processes.

Looking at the Bigger Picture

What we’ve found from conversations with various organizations, as well as industry research, is that creative operations can often be very reactionary—trying to fix individual problems, rather than taking a step back to evaluate the whole picture to better optimize for the future.

With organizations working at such an incredible pace, the easy option is to implement a solution to address the immediate need, often at the department level. Unfortunately, all this tends to do is shift the problem or cause further disconnect and communication silos, making it harder for everyone to get on the same page.

Taking the time to properly evaluate your processes and incorporate the entire picture can be a massive project. To even get started, you need to have a deep understanding of your team, your market, and upcoming trends that you’ll need to address. From our experience working with creative teams across multiple industries, we’ve been able to gain a third-party view of the creative process, and identify trends across industries, locations and organization sizes. The three biggest trends we’ve seen are:

• Remote work will remain a reality
• Technology will be re-evaluated
• Room will be made for creativity

Let’s dive into each in more detail.

Trend #1 – Remote Work Will Remain a Reality

The shift that we’ve seen, in part because of the pandemic, but also due to other factors, is that distributed teams are becoming much more feasible for the average organization. Prior to 2020, around 60% of companies had at least one person on their team working remotely. Now that employees have adapted more to working from home, most have shared that they’d prefer to keep working remotely, at least part-time. As a result, we’re seeing more and more organizations announcing flexible remote-work policies.

The past six months have proven that creative teams can work remotely while staying productive and connected. Some teams are even getting creative and adding coffee breaks or water cooler chats into their daily schedules via phone or Zoom, to hold on to that social aspect.

Next Steps for Creative Operations

From the perspective of creative operations, what this shift really means is that it’s time to take steps to ensure that your team is fully set up. Don’t simply implement temporary solutions, but ones that adapt to these changes as if you’ll work remotely forever. The key question to ask is: what does a sustainable work-from-home environment look like for your team? You’ll need to answer:

• Do you have the proper infrastructure in place?
• Are employees set up for individual success from home?
• Have the appropriate boundaries been set?

Companies had to react quickly to the events of 2020 – making sure they had the right technology set-up to ensure everyone can be successful at home. But, along with making sure the right technology is in place, it’s equally as important to make sure your team is set up for success at home, both mentally and physically. A group office is easily standardized—everyone is working in the same environment with similar desks, chairs, etc. When you’re suddenly thrust into a situation where your home becomes your work area, the environment becomes variable. Some might have an at-home office, but many are working at the kitchen table – sometimes with their kids playing right next to them. Not everyone is operating in the same way. It’s critical to evaluate how you can support these individuals, with equipment and processes that consider this variability.

Establishing boundaries between work and home can also be beneficial to make sure your team can break away from work, when needed. Create a clear routine with a distinction between work and home, to keep your team focused and energized.

Trend #2 – Technology will be Re-Evaluated

The next trend we anticipate is that technology will be seriously re-evaluated in 2021. This past year was very reactionary in regards to the technology that many companies brought in, and a lot of businesses were quick to purchase department-level technology. But, now we’re seeing that teams are taking a step back and looking at what they really need as a business – and where they can save money through consolidation.

The nature of the last year also led to fast-tracked implementation plans. The immediate need was for organizations to get up and running quickly, so that they could continue working. Now, leading into 2021, many of those fast-tracked implementations will need to be re-evaluated and expanded, where required.

Next Steps for Creative Teams

A re-evaluation doesn’t always mean a rip and replace. It can be a change in use or a review of best practices. The whole implementation process has evolved, and what may have been a whiteboard discussion in a meeting room is now on Zoom or Teams; training is different, and the roll-out doesn’t look the same, either. Consider how you’ll approach this, and how you’ll create that infectious culture that’s key in ensuring adoption of your platforms.

Another important thing to keep in mind is that at an organization-level, they may be looking to make cuts. In our industry, we often see technology, in particular, department-level technology, get replaced with something cheaper or more widely-used because the department has trouble explaining the investment. For the pieces of technology that you do love and want to keep, now is the time to prepare to prove ROI.

Our recommendation is to evaluate how your technology can provide value in other departments. For example, while a DAM is built with marketing and creative teams in mind, many other departments can get value from it, too. We’ve seen it used by on-site sales teams in real estate to showcase past projects, by operations to manage relationships with franchisees, and even architect teams to manage 3D models. The more organization-wide your solutions seem, the more easily you’ll be able to justify keeping them.

Trend #3 – Room Will be Made for Creativity

Remember – creatives are already not feeling like they’re living up to their potential. This is now being compounded by the increasing demand for personalized, highly visual content – leaving designers squeezed for time.

As part of creative operations, you need to find ways to empower your creatives and give them wiggle room to do their job. Without space for creativity, and, let’s be honest, a second to breathe, your creative team is at risk of burnout, which, in turn, puts your organization at risk. Where there’s burnout, there’s often turnover, volatility, and disconnected workers. Creative leaders who realize the importance of these issues and find ways to increase bandwidth to make room for creativity, exploration and risk will achieve a significant advantage over competitors in 2021.

Next Steps for Creative Teams

Creating room for creativity is an interesting undertaking, it’s harder to quantify and even harder to justify, but as creative operations leaders, there are ways to give your creative team incremental wins that give them their time back, without needing to overhaul your workflows.

Firstly, a large amount of free time can be found just in automating repetitive tasks. This usually comes from administrative tasks, like sending files to other departments or uploading final designs to a file-share system. This type of busy-work takes up a significant portion of the day that could be spent being creative. Finding solutions helps reduce the burden of these tasks and can help free up creative time for more exploration and discovery.

Another opportunity comes from providing more breathing room with deadlines. This is definitely easier said than done, and often stems from having uncomfortable conversations with other teams in order to set boundaries and expectations.

The final opportunity comes from simplifying your creatives’ technology stack. This doesn’t mean to overhaul the technologies you already use, but rather see if there are technologies that can be hidden or consolidated using integrations. In an IDC survey, over 80% of business leaders agreed that problems often happen because their systems don’t talk to each other. When solutions are integrated, it enables your team to work out of fewer applications, while still staying linked to the other tools they need to be productive and connected.

Another value-add of integration comes from enhancing your workflow. In the same IDC survey, 43% of employees said they needed to copy-and-paste information across multiple platforms. When all your applications connect and speak to each other, tasks can be streamlined or automated, saving time from having to duplicate efforts across platforms, and reducing room for error.

Prioritize the Experience

There’s undeniably a shift that’s occurred across all industries to prioritize experience. Think about industry leaders like Tesla, Apple or Amazon—they all design with the intent to maximize customer experience. Consider how you can apply this to creative operations:

• What kind of experience are you creating for your employees?
• How are you using technology to enable dynamic experiences for your team?

Creating a workflow is a design challenge just like anything else, so design with intent and design with experience in mind. As we look to 2021 and beyond, technology is going to be a huge enabler of these experiences. We need to choose technologies that will provide a seamless experience and lean into the way creatives are working, and the way you want them to work.

Re-Evaluate Your Creative Operations

If we consider these three trends, it’s clear that there’s an opportunity here to take this time to prioritize and lean into the idea of experience. Most people have accepted that things are shifting and changing, and that there’s a movement happening. It’s the perfect opportunity to re-look at your team’s workflow and adapt.

It’s no longer acceptable to rely on systems that can only be accessed while physically inside an office building. Work is a place you log into, not somewhere you go. We need to be able to access everything, anywhere, all the time. Creative operations now need to allow employees to be flexible.

One of the most prevalent problems with a DAM initiative is adoption by creative teams.

Despite the number of problems that a DAM solves for an organization, it introduces new processes that creatives have to get used to. As a result, many creatives choose to host their assets on their desktops, laptops, and drives, which introduces risks to projects.

It’s a conundrum that many business leaders have to deal with: How do you keep creatives happy while investing in the necessary technical infrastructure for the company?

Creative departments, whether they’re in-house or external agencies, first and foremost focus on efficiency. Understanding how they work, individually and as a team, is detrimental to finding a DAM that will be accepted and adopted by the team.

While every team has different expectations from the eventual end product, every successful creative implementation subscribes to these core fundamentals:

Minimize perceived change

Change can be disruptive to any team, but especially for those that already perform under tight timelines and volume pressure. The goal is to deliver a solution that provides benefits but still follows existing workflows as closely as possible. Work with someone on the creative team to outline the daily tasks and the processes involved, then build use cases and trial examples to be used as the basis for vendor and solution evaluations.

Understand possible bottlenecks

One of the benefits of documenting a creative’s use cases is understanding the entire asset lifecycle and potential bottlenecks. For a high-volume production process, a small delay in completing a task can get multiplied and push deadlines by hours, or even days. Some of the most common areas affected by technology for high-volume creative teams are:

• Delays in receiving working files – gaining access to raw footage from photo and video shoots can be a challenge and, if overlooked, can cause multi-day delays.
• Bottlenecks in collaboration – when creative teams are interdependent on each other, small delays, like approvals or sending an asset, can easily add up and extend timelines.
• Disruption of SLAs – when the support team can’t be accessed around the clock to resolve issues affecting required levels of production, projects can come to a halt.

Find a champion

Finding the right champion can make or break a project.

A great champion is someone who’s experienced the pain that can be resolved by the solution: their files were lost, their deadlines weren’t met due to collaboration issues, they waste hours searching for images, and so on. If your solution can resolve that challenge, they’ll be more likely to support it, because they’ve felt the pain firsthand.

On another hand, a champion can also be found in a team member that often volunteers ideas on process improvement, shows greater technological aptitude, and uses apps to improve their work and day-to-day life. They will typically be early adopters of new solutions and once they start seeing benefits, can share with the team and help the others along to adopt the new process.

Get the team on board

Evaluate new systems with the goal of finding ones that will have minimal disruption to the current creative workflow. Demonstrate to your creative team why the change is necessary and explain the extent of the changes or disruptions to their processes. Keep an open mind and be patient. You won’t convince everyone overnight, but persistence pays off. Have a handful of supporters that you train beforehand to lead the transition, and once you’ve proven that the technology is valid, start with a small-scale deployment within a core team and then expand to other teams and regions.

Set a schedule

Transitioning an entire team to new software all at once can run the risk of putting production way behind. Set a schedule to train teams in stages, and make sure people know when their training will begin. By doing this, you’ll learn what works, keep your implementation agile and allow the people who are trained first to hype the system. Set a deadline for the transition, but be flexible. Even the most realistic rollouts can be pushed back by unexpected roadblocks.

Thriving in Creative Chaos

While this post gives you a sneak peek into the world of your creatives, it just scratches the surface. To do a deep dive into the minds of your creative team and what they look for in their business technology, download our latest eBook “Thriving in Creative Chaos“.

In this series, we’re highlighting some of the common stakeholders we see involved in a DAM project, discussing their unique challenges and priorities, and showing how a digital asset management initiative aligns with their goals.

With the primary goal of making creative production as efficient, productive, and compliant as possible, Creative Operations is responsible for formally defining and streamlining the creative process. They work to optimize workflows for producing, revising, and approving creative assets to meet deadlines and stay on budget.

Creative Operations is responsible for optimizing people, technology, and processes to deliver the maximum output of creative production. With an increasing need for personalization at scale, they identify tools to minimize gaps in asset production and work with technology vendors to implement new initiatives.

In this post we will cover

• Goals and Challenges of Creative Operations
• Creative Operations Impact on a DAM Project
• Benefits of a DAM for Creative Operations
  

Goals and Challenges of Creative Operations

Creative Operations typically focuses on these three primary goals to achieve success:

1. Getting creative projects completed on time and on budget

One of the most important factors in Creative Operations is project deadlines. The organization relies on the Operations team to effectively set timelines, implement processes, and set milestones that enable the creative team to complete a high volume of projects on time and on budget.

In order to achieve that, Creative Operations need to anticipate and recognize bottlenecks or inefficiencies and eliminate them before they jeopardize project milestones. They also need to identify and implement technologies and workflows that would allow the team to work at maximum efficiency.

2. Tracking relevant KPIs and metrics

Tracking the impact of the creative team on the company’s bottom line can be critical for securing budgets for technology platforms, additional headcount, or structural changes. Creative Operations is often responsible for setting these trackable metrics for the creative team, like Lead Time Per Project, Estimated vs. Actual Project Time and Budget, and Satisfaction Ratings. This assigns accountability, analyzes process efficacy, and proves successes. while allowing Creative Operations to present the impact of new technologies, processes, and team members on the organization’s bottom line.

Creative operations tracking is about finding growth opportunities, improving productivity at both the team and personal level, maintaining the minimum standards of quality delivery, and elevating customer (and leadership) satisfaction across the board.

3. Enabling creative teams with effective tools and resources

To improve the creative team’s metrics, Creative Operations needs to provide creatives with everything they need to focus on production. This may include access to image libraries, the latest brand or product assets, creative platforms, and workflow tools. The Creative Operations team is responsible for ensuring the continuity of projects, so when someone is sick or away on vacation, the rest of the team can deliver projects on time. If the company is running a 24/7 creative production schedule, then Creative Operations need to ensure that projects can be easily transitioned from one region to another, while maintaining visibility into the project’s status and latest versions.

Creative Operations Impact on a DAM Project

While a digital asset management initiative is usually initiated by the marketing department, the creative team is often impacted by the DAM platform and should be included when analyzing use cases.

As the advocate for content creators, Creative Operations looks to evaluate technologies that have the ability to improve production, without making drastic changes or disruptions to the team’s existing process for building content.

Here are questions for Creative Operations to consider when making decisions about a DAM initiative:

1. Can the marketing team easily find and leverage the assets produced by the creative team? Are they easy to download and share?

2. Is the creative team enabled to meet the demand for a growing volume of creative content? Are project timelines jeopardized because of delays in creative production?

3. Can the creative team easily access and share relevant visuals for projects? Are they able to collaborate effectively?

4. Can you ensure all assets being created are upholding brand visual standards?

5. Is there a risk of high-value asset loss (photography originals, investor content, etc.) with the current asset management practices?

Benefits of a DAM for Creative Operations

When the Creative Operations team is involved in a digital asset management initiative, it’s important to understand how the creative team will be impacted. Here are some benefits to consider highlighting:

Accelerated Creative Processes: A DAM provides workflow and collaboration features that allow the creative team and marketing to work more efficiently together. It removes bottlenecks and eliminates administrative tasks, like responding to image requests. Most DAMs also provide integrations into Adobe Creative Suite, enabling designers to access their asset library from inside their creative tools.

Improved Collaboration: Teams in different divisions and locations can work together on projects, eliminating challenges faced when sharing large media files. Previous and current projects can be easily accessed, created, and shared with teams.

Brand Consistency: A DAM allows users to quickly find assets that are on-brand and pre-approved by marketing. All teams are able to search for the assets they need within a single library and transform them into a variety of file types and sizes (such as from a JPG to a PNG). Creatives can quickly find the assets they need for projects, instead of relying on team members to share them.

Increased Scale: With a DAM, content creation becomes more scalable, as the latest versions of assets are instantly available to all users. This scalability increases as asset updates get connected to existing systems, like the company’s CMS, via integrations. Content updates or large projects are massively accelerated by a DAM and can quickly be rolled out to multiple regions, teams, and users.

Easier Accessibility: A DAM aggregates every media asset into an easily accessible location and makes them easily discoverable by users. Assets purchased or created across different locations can be easily browsed or searched. Remote creative teams can easily access work-in-progress projects and marketing can quickly access completed projects.

DAM platforms can be incredibly versatile and provide benefits to a number of teams and divisions within an organization. Don’t forget to also look at the priorities of the CMO and the VP of IT.

Here’s some other helpful content, to help you build the business case for DAM project across your organization:

• ROI Calculator and Business Case
• 3 Categories of Users to Consider

Who needs digital asset management?

It’s a great question, but there isn’t one standard industry that benefits the most from a DAM. When collections of digital assets become scattered, misplaced, or lost, many different companies – no matter their industry, shape, or size – suffer from wasted time, failure to meet business goals, and even the complete loss of valuable digital assets.

Whether you’re an S&P 500 company operating in hundreds of countries or a local, single-office organization, a digital asset management system will help you secure your digital collection, improve your creative processes and meet your business goals faster.

Let’s take a deeper look at some common industries that use digital asset management.

Higher Education

Universities and colleges need a strong visual presence to drive recruitment, funding, and student engagement. With large amounts of photos, videos, and content across multiple teams and channels, they face challenges in effectively managing their marketing collateral.

With a DAM, these schools can provide users with the ability to securely access, download and share files from any location – on or off campus – to improve cross-campus consistency and better connect with stakeholders.

Read more about DAM for Higher Education

Real Estate & Construction

Real estate companies rely on their agents, departments, and partners to pique interest and increase sales, using property photos, virtual tours, and content templates. But, with large file sizes and increasingly complex file types (such as 3D models), it can be a challenge to effectively connect these teams with the content they need.

A DAM allows real estate & construction organizations to secure all of their assets in a single library while supplying sales content to all employees across the organization.

Read more about DAM for Real Estate & Construction

Manufacturing

Manufacturing organizations collaborate heavily with their distributors, buyers, and retailers to get their products and messaging to the end customers. Their business growth relies on their ability to consistently communicate with distributors and enable them with the most up-to-date product information, images, and collateral.

A digital asset management system gives manufacturers and their partners a single source of truth for all their brand material. With a library that enables search by SKU, product ID, and more, manufacturers are able to empower their distribution channels and strengthen their brand.

Read more about DAM for Manufacturing

Agencies

With thousands of options worldwide, agencies are faced with the challenge of standing out as the ideal partner for clients. As part of this, agencies need to provide superior lines of communication, shorter turnaround times, and better access to final projects than competing agencies.

A DAM helps improve the creative production process between agencies and their clients and provides a point of access for clients to find their finished projects.

Read more about DAM for Agencies

Technology

The technology industry has become more competitive than ever and companies need to engage with customers across multiple relevant digital channels if they hope to stand out. Their teams and content need to be extremely well-aligned, which can be a challenge when departments and offices are siloed.

A digital asset management system breaks down those siloes, creating one single source of truth for any and all departments to find the content, templates, and brand assets they need to create and share on-brand material.

Read more about DAM for Technology Companies

Retail & eCommerce

Retail organizations rely on high-quality images and engaging content to build trust in their brand and entice customers to make purchases. But, as retailers expand their product lines and distribution channels, it can become more challenging to streamline and manage content creation.

Digital asset management helps retailers to better manage the creation and distribution of their brand materials across each department, team, and partner. From eCommerce to in-store signage, a DAM ensures that every channel remains consistent and on-brand.

Read more about DAM for Retail and eCommerce

Other Industries that Benefit from a DAM

The benefits don’t stop at these industries! Here are some other industries that are making the most of their assets with a DAM.

Nonprofits

A key concern for nonprofits is often the time they waste trying to manage their marketing material across multiple hard drives and personal computers, with a majority of their employees working off-site. A DAM provides a central point of access for assets no matter where employees or volunteers are working.

Hotels & Resorts

With various locations, chains, and products, managing a hospitality enterprise can be difficult. Hotels & resorts benefit from a DAM that allows their collection to grow at a rapid rate and enables global employees to access digital assets when they need them.

Tourism

In tourism, employees typically work with agencies and partners across geographical boundaries and use a DAM to consolidate scattered and siloed collections. Tourism boards also use a DAM as an online hub to help drive customer engagement and encourage user-generated content.

Franchises

A common problem that most franchises face is making on-brand material instantly available to their franchisees. With a DAM in place, each item in the system is subject to controls and permissions set up by an admin, which ensures that users across all franchise locations have access to up-to-date collateral that’s relevant to their location.

Local Government

While governments suffer from common DAM problems, they absolutely cannot risk assets being improperly shared with unauthorized audiences. With a DAM built on security-forward cloud platforms (such as Microsoft Azure), governments can be at ease that their private digital files are stored in a safe and secure manner.

When it comes down to it, just about every industry has a use case for a digital asset management system. For a more detailed look at how DAM impacts MediaValet’s customers, take a look at our case studies.