SharePoint Brand Center vs a DAM: what each one holds
SharePoint Brand Center is where a Microsoft 365 organization keeps the colours, fonts and logo files that style its SharePoint sites. It is a good tool for that job and it comes with the subscription. It is not built to run a photo and video library: it has no usage rights, no expiry, no access for people outside the company and no search by what an image shows. Most marketing teams end up using Brand Center for site branding and a DAM for the image library, and since 2026 the two meet again in Copilot through Brand Kits.
The facts below come from Microsoft's documentation as read on 17 October 2026: the Brand Center overview and the organization assets library page.
Three Microsoft features with similar names
The word "brand" appears in three places in Microsoft 365, and they do different things:
| Feature | What it does | Who manages it |
|---|---|---|
| SharePoint Brand Center | Styles SharePoint sites: colour themes, custom fonts, logos, images | Owners of the Brand Center site |
| Organization assets library | A SharePoint library of images or Office templates that appears in pickers across the organization | SharePoint administrators, with PowerShell |
| Copilot Brand Kit | Tells Copilot in PowerPoint and Create which logos, colours, fonts and images to use | Brand managers named by an Office policy |
Brand Center stores its images in organization assets libraries behind the scenes. A Brand Kit is separate: it is built in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app and points to an image source, which can be SharePoint, OneDrive, an organization assets library or a DAM connected to Microsoft 365. The Copilot Brand Kit guide covers that setup.
What SharePoint Brand Center does
Brand Center is a SharePoint app on a designated site. A Global Administrator turns it on in the Microsoft 365 admin center, under Settings → Org settings → Brand center, and gives consent to a public CDN, which Brand Center requires. The owners of that site then act as brand managers.
Inside the app, brand managers upload and manage:
- Colour themes that site owners can apply from Change the look.
- Custom fonts for SharePoint sites. Organization fonts also work in PowerPoint for the web for people with an Office 365 E3 or E5 license.
- Brand images such as logos, icons and backgrounds, stored in an organization assets library.
There is one Brand Center per organization, created in the tenant's primary geography. Organizations in several geographies need an organization assets library with a public CDN in each one for custom fonts to work there.
What an organization assets library does
An organization assets library is a document library that an administrator designates with the Add-SPOOrgAssetsLibrary cmdlet, as an image library or as an Office template library. Microsoft's limits:
- up to 30 organization assets libraries per organization, all on the same site;
- only libraries, not folders, can be designated;
- the site must give Everyone except external users at least read access, and permissions can be customised on up to 100 files and folders;
- up to 24 hours before a library appears in the desktop apps.
Images in these libraries appear when someone adds an image to a modern SharePoint page and selects Your organization in the file picker. Templates appear when someone creates a new Word, Excel or PowerPoint file, in desktop apps from version 2002, and in PowerPoint for the web for E3 or E5 users.
Where Brand Center stops
Brand Center and organization assets libraries cover the files that style Microsoft 365 itself. A marketing image library asks for more, and these are the gaps teams usually hit:
| Need | Brand Center and organization assets libraries | A DAM such as Freedam |
|---|---|---|
| Find a photo by what it shows | File names and SharePoint columns | AI captions and tags, search by meaning and by visual similarity |
| Usage rights and expiry | Not modelled; possible with custom columns and Power Automate | A rights policy on each asset, with its expiry date; expired images are withdrawn from Microsoft 365 |
| People outside the company | Not offered: the site is read by Everyone except external users | Share links with expiry and watermarks, and a public brand portal |
| Video | Files in a library | Previews, renditions, transcripts, embeds |
| Download in the right size | The original file | Generated renditions and download presets |
| Who used which image | SharePoint audit logs | Download and view analytics per asset |
| Copilot and Microsoft Search | Files in SharePoint are indexed by Microsoft | Approved images published through a Copilot connector |
None of this makes Brand Center the wrong tool. A team whose brand files are a dozen logos and a font family has no reason to look further. The table matters once the library holds hundreds of product and campaign photos that agencies, dealers and sales need, with rights that run out.
How they fit together
The arrangement we see work keeps each tool on its own job:
- Brand Center styles the intranet and SharePoint sites: colour themes, fonts, the logo in the site header.
- The DAM is the one place where photos, videos and design files are stored, described, approved and shared outside the company.
- The DAM's Copilot connector publishes the approved images to Microsoft 365, so Microsoft Search and Copilot Chat find them.
- An official Brand Kit uses the brand fonts and colours and takes its images from the DAM connection, so Copilot in PowerPoint builds presentations from approved photos.
Each image then has one home. When an image is replaced or its rights expire in the DAM, Microsoft 365 receives the change without anyone uploading a file to SharePoint.
Frequently asked questions
What is SharePoint Brand Center?
A SharePoint app, turned on by a Global Administrator, where brand managers manage the colour themes, custom fonts and brand images used on SharePoint sites. It stores images in organization assets libraries and needs a public CDN. There is one per organization.
Is SharePoint Brand Center a DAM?
No. It manages the files that style SharePoint: themes, fonts and logos. It has no usage rights or expiry, no sharing with people outside the company, no renditions and no search by image content, which a digital asset management system provides.
What is the difference between Brand Center and a Copilot Brand Kit?
Brand Center styles SharePoint sites. A Brand Kit is built in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app and tells Copilot in PowerPoint and Create which logos, colours, fonts and images to use. A Brand Kit can take its images from SharePoint, OneDrive, an organization assets library or a connected DAM.
How many organization assets libraries can I have?
Microsoft allows up to 30 per organization, and all of them must be on the same SharePoint site. Each one is either an image library or an Office template library.
Can external partners use SharePoint Brand Center?
Not as designed. The organization assets site must be readable by Everyone except external users, and the libraries appear in pickers inside Microsoft 365. Agencies, dealers and press need a share link or a brand portal from a DAM instead.
The SharePoint DAM series goes further into limits, cost, integration and migration. For the brand site itself, see how to design a brand center.