Digital asset management

Every team accumulates assets: logos, photos, brand guidelines, templates, marketing materials, social graphics, product shots, videos, presentations. They start in a shared drive, organised by whoever set it up, using a naming convention that made sense to them at the time. Six months later, nobody can find the right version of the logo. The product shots from the last campaign are in a folder nobody remembers the name of. Someone asks for "the hero image from the rebrand" and the answer involves opening twelve folders before giving up and asking the designer who made it. The assets exist. The findability doesn't.

This is a creative operations problem. Asset management isn't just storage. It's the infrastructure that lets a creative team move from "we need this" to "it's live" without losing context, feedback, or time to folder archaeology. Fabric gives your team a searchable asset library where files are found by what they are, not what someone named them, with smart organisation, self-writing project docs, and agents that handle the coordination.

The problem

Assets are buried in folder structures that don't scale. The shared drive started organised. Then the team grew, campaigns multiplied, and the folder hierarchy became its own maze. Finding a specific asset means knowing which campaign it was from, which subfolder it lives in, and what someone named it. If you weren't the person who saved it, you're guessing.

Search by filename doesn't work for visual assets. You're looking for a product shot with a white background, or the version of the logo with the tagline, or a social graphic in portrait format. None of that is in the filename. Visual assets are described by what they look like, not by what they're called, and traditional file search can't bridge that gap.

Version control is nonexistent. The logo folder has six files: logo_final, logo_final_v2, logo_FINAL_USE_THIS, logo_new, logo_updated, logo_2024. Nobody knows which is current. The same problem repeats with templates, guidelines, and campaign assets. Every uncertain version choice is a risk of publishing the wrong one.

What Fabric changes

Every asset is searchable by content, not just filename. Fabric reads what's in your images, documents, and files. Search for "product shot white background" or "logo with tagline" and find the right asset regardless of what it's named. Visual search, colour search, and meaning-based search all work across the library.

The whole team finds assets the same way. It doesn't matter who saved the file, when, or what they called it. Everyone searches the same library the same way. The person who joined last week finds assets as easily as the person who's been there for years.

One current version, always findable. When an asset is updated, the new version replaces the old one. No more six-file naming chaos. The library holds the current version and the current version is what search returns.

How it works

Visual, colour, and meaning-based search. AI search finds assets by what they look like, what colour they are, and what they're about. Search by description ("team photo from the offsite"), by colour (find every asset matching a brand palette), or by visual similarity (drop in a reference and similar search finds everything that looks like it).

Smart organisation without manual filing. Smart organization handles filing with AI-generated tags, dynamic collections that populate automatically, and colour recognition that lets you search assets by palette. The explorer provides a spatial view of your library for serendipitous discovery, surfacing visual connections across campaigns and projects.

A shared space for the team's assets. Create a Fabric space for the asset library and invite the team. Everyone adds to and searches from the same collection. The library is the single source of truth for brand and marketing materials.

Canvas for moodboards and presentations. The canvas lets you arrange assets spatially for moodboards, creative reviews, and client presentations. Drag material from your library. Add live embeds from Figma, YouTube, and Spotify. Real-time collaboration means the team builds boards together.

An AI that knows your asset library. The AI assistant works from the library. Ask it to find a specific asset, pull together everything from a campaign, or surface all assets matching a brand guideline. It searches by meaning and visual content rather than metadata you'd have to maintain manually.

Annotate assets with usage notes. Annotate any asset with context: usage guidelines, approved channels, expiry dates, or notes about when and where to use it. Draw directly on images to mark specific areas. These annotations are searchable by the team.

Self-writing project docs. Self-writing docs produce project records from your meetings and Slack: decision logs tracking creative direction choices and approvals, changelogs tracking what shipped and when. The project context stays current without manual documentation.

Agents that coordinate. Agents handle operational tasks: generating weekly project summaries, flagging assets approaching expiry or needing refresh, and assembling status reports from team activity.

Pull in assets from existing tools. Connect Google Drive, Dropbox, or Notion to bring your existing asset library into Fabric without re-uploading file by file.

Share externally with control. Publish asset collections with password protection and link analytics for external partners, agencies, or media. Control who can access the assets and track when they do.

A digital asset management workflow in Fabric

Centralise what already exists. Import assets from Google Drive, Dropbox, and Notion. Upload from local folders via desktop file sync. Forward assets received by email to your email-to-note address. Get everything into one library.

Organise broadly, trust search for the rest. Create sub-spaces for major categories (logos, product photography, templates, campaign assets) if the volume warrants it. Don't over-organise. Search by content, colour, and similarity handles the discovery that folder structures can't.

When someone needs an asset, they search. "Social template portrait format" or "product hero shot dark background" returns the right file regardless of its name or location. The designer, the marketer, and the new hire all find things the same way.

Keep it current. When a logo or template is updated, replace the old version. Annotate the new one with context if needed. The library always reflects the current state of the brand.

Share with external partners. When an agency, partner, or media outlet needs assets, publish a curated collection with a password-protected link. Track access and know who's downloaded what. For a permanent public link, see press kit.

Audit periodically. Search for outdated assets, deprecated logos, or expired campaign materials. The AI can help surface assets that haven't been used or referenced recently.

What compounds over time

A well-maintained asset library gets more useful the larger it grows. Every new photo, template, graphic, and guideline adds to what the team can search and draw from. Visual similarity search becomes more powerful with more material to match against. And the time saved per search adds up: a team that runs fifty asset searches a week and saves five minutes each time reclaims four hours weekly.

The library also becomes an institutional record. Campaign assets from two years ago are still findable. Brand evolution is visible. New team members can browse the full history of what's been created rather than only seeing what's current.

Related use cases

For building moodboards and collecting visual inspiration, see moodboards and inspiration. For managing the full lifecycle of a design project, see design projects. For design-specific feedback with drawing and timestamps, see design feedback. For a public, always-current brand asset link, see press kit. For running review and feedback cycles on assets, see review and approval. For a broader team knowledge base, see team wiki.

Fabric is built for designers, marketers, creative teams, and agencies.

Get started

Put your team's assets in one place and find them by what they are, not what someone named them. Try Fabric free.

Comparing tools? See why teams choose Fabric as the best digital asset management tool and the best creative ops platform. See how Fabric compares to Air, Bynder, Brandfolder, Canto, and Acquia DAM.

FAQs

Can I search for assets by what they look like?

Yes. Fabric's visual search finds assets by appearance, composition, and style. Drop in a reference image and find everything similar. Search by colour to find assets matching a palette. Or describe what you're looking for in words.

Can I search by colour?

Yes. Search by a specific colour or palette and Fabric finds every asset in the library that matches. Useful for pulling on-brand assets or finding materials in a specific colour family.

Does Fabric tag assets automatically?

Yes. Fabric reads the content of images and files and applies tags based on what they contain. You can add your own tags on top for custom organisation.

Can I find an asset if I don't know what it's called?

Yes. Search by description, colour, or visual similarity. "Team photo from the offsite" or "product shot with packaging" finds the asset by what it is, not by its filename.

Can the whole team search the same asset library?

Yes. Share the space with your team and everyone searches the same collection. The library is the single source of truth for brand and marketing assets.

Can I share assets with external partners?

Yes. Publish a curated collection with password protection and link analytics. Partners, agencies, and media access the assets you've shared, and you track when they do.

Can I annotate assets with usage guidelines?

Yes. Annotate any asset with notes about approved usage, channels, expiry, or context. These annotations are searchable by the team.

How is this different from Google Drive or Dropbox for managing assets?

File storage organises by filename and folder. Fabric adds AI search by content, colour, and visual similarity, automatic tagging, annotations, and password-protected sharing with analytics. The difference is finding an asset by what it looks like rather than by what someone named it.

How is this different from an enterprise DAM like Bynder or Brandfolder?

Enterprise DAMs are built for large organisations with complex metadata schemas, approval workflows, and rights management. Fabric is a creative ops workspace that combines searchable asset management with self-writing project documentation, AI-powered search by colour and visual similarity, an infinite canvas for moodboards and reviews, and agents that handle coordination. If your team needs a connected creative workspace rather than a standalone asset vault, Fabric fits. See the best creative ops platform comparison.

Can I import assets from Google Drive, Dropbox, or Figma?

Yes. Fabric connects to Google Drive, Dropbox, and Notion. Bring in your existing asset library without re-uploading.

What file types are supported?

Images (JPG, PNG, GIF, WebP, SVG), PDFs, documents, slide decks, video, audio, and design files. All are searchable by content and visual characteristics.

Is there a storage limit?

Storage depends on your Fabric plan. For details, see pricing.

Can I control who has access to the asset library?

Yes. Access is controlled per space. You choose who's invited and can add or remove team members at any time. External access is managed separately through published links.