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A brand portal enables colleagues without a design background to create their own posters, flyers, social posts and other communication materials. For a designer, that might not immediately sound like progress. What happens to quality? Will everything become a template? And perhaps the most important question:
Does that make the designer's role redundant?
It's an understandable question. On paper, a brand portal seems to do exactly what a designer would normally be brought in to do: create communication materials.
In practice, however, the role of designers becomes even more important when working with a brand portal. We asked Demi Schuitemaker, designer and consultant at Cordeo, how she sees it.
There's no getting around it: a brand portal can reduce the amount of DTP work required.
Many design teams deal with tasks that are very similar in nature. An existing poster needs to be adapted for another event. A flyer needs new copy. A social post needs to be recreated for the next campaign.
These are tasks that often require a designer or DTP specialist, but don't necessarily require a completely new design every time. Templates allow some of this recurring production work to be handled by users themselves.
Demi sees this primarily as a shift:
“I don’t think a brand portal replaces the designer. Instead, it changes their role. When recurring tasks no longer have to be done from scratch every time, there’s more room for creativity and for the kind of work where designers can really add value.”
This also creates a clearer distinction between repeatable production work and design challenges that genuinely require bespoke work. That distinction can have a significant financial impact. If dozens or hundreds of variations no longer need to be created individually, fewer DTP hours are required.
At NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, for example, this became apparent in its programme communications. Programme fact sheets can now be created using templates, rather than producing each brochure individually in InDesign. Graphic designer Maran de Boer explained in our customer case:
“We have achieved significant savings in both time and costs by creating programme fact sheets in Cordeo, for example, rather than producing each brochure individually in InDesign.”
Reducing recurring DTP work is only possible if there is a well-designed template in place to begin with. And designing a template requires a different way of thinking from designing a single piece of communication.
When designing an individual poster, a designer knows which copy, photography and other content will be used. The design can be tailored specifically to that content.
With a template, you don't know exactly what users will create with it. The amount of copy will vary, images will have different proportions and the same foundation may need to accommodate several different applications. Demi explains:
“You’re constantly looking for the right balance. A good template protects the visual identity while giving employees the freedom to create professional materials themselves.”
The design is therefore prepared for variation. Some elements need to be protected, while others need enough flexibility to accommodate different types of content. For designers, that means thinking several steps ahead.
This also raises the stakes for designers. Instead of designing a single asset, you're creating a system that others will use again and again. A decision you make once might shape hundreds of future outputs. Getting those decisions right from the start therefore matters much more.
That raises another question: when is a template actually the right solution?
A communication asset that is used frequently and mainly changes in terms of content is more likely to benefit from a template than a one-off campaign that requires a new creative concept.
That distinction matters. The purpose of templates isn't to standardise all design work. They are particularly useful for applications where recreating every variation from scratch adds little value.
For an in-house designer, this can also change the way new requests are approached.
Maran describes this development at NHL Stenden as follows:
“In my role as a graphic designer, I now think less in terms of delivering a finished product and more about the overall process and how we can organise it efficiently.”
For her, that involves one very practical consideration:
“With everything we do, we ask ourselves the same question: does this require bespoke work, or can we translate it into a template?”
By avoiding the need to repeat the same production work time and again, it becomes easier to distinguish between what can be standardised and where bespoke design genuinely adds value.
That depends on the organisation.
Not every organisation has its own designer. When design and DTP are outsourced, a brand portal can primarily reduce the number of hours required for recurring production work. Professional design expertise is still needed for new templates, campaigns, concepts or further development of the visual identity, but no longer for every individual variation.
For in-house designers, the effect can be different. Some of their focus can shift from producing individual assets to thinking more strategically about how design can be applied across the organisation.
Rather than being the final stop for individual requests, the designer increasingly helps determine how design works throughout the organisation.
Which materials are created frequently? Where is bespoke work needed? Where do users encounter difficulties? And when does a new requirement call for a new design rather than an extension of an existing template?
As Demi puts it:
“For me, good design doesn’t start with how something looks. It starts with understanding what someone needs. You’re not just asking: how can I make this look good? More importantly: how can I make sure it works for the client?”
Design goes beyond appearance. It's also about whether a design remains usable when other people start working with it.
The answer is no.
Recurring DTP work no longer needs to be carried out by a designer every time when colleagues can work independently with templates. This can save both time and costs. But there's another side to that equation: those templates need to be designed in the first place.
The distinction, therefore, isn't so much designer or brand portal, but rather bespoke or repeatable work.
For in-house designers, a brand portal can be a way to apply their design expertise more broadly across the organisation, not only through individual communication materials, but also through the templates and frameworks that colleagues use themselves.
Not every organisation has the design expertise required to translate a visual identity into flexible templates. In that case, an external designer can provide that expertise.
Cordeo also offers design services. Our designers can work from an existing visual identity to develop designs and templates, as well as provide support when a new concept or further development of the visual identity is needed.
Curious to see what this looks like in practice?
Curious to see what a brand portal can do for your organisation?