From business cards and marketing collateral through to the public-facing website, any organisation worth its salt brands itself with a consistent look‑and‑feel. Branding goes well beyond just the logo and graphical elements, it is the distinctiveness and personality of the brand which customers can identify with.
Your organisation may be operating a number of SharePoint intranets that lack the look-and-feel of your corporate brand. While there's usually nothing inherently wrong with sticking with the default appearance, it can be a great idea to take advantage of the theme engine that comes with the SharePoint platform. Doing this can improve user adoption, enhance the user experience and support the corporate branding guidelines that probably already exist in your organisation. And all through a streamlined corporate interface.
What you need to know
Before diving into the SharePoint engine to spice up its look and feel, I should point out a couple of things. First, there's good news and bad news. Well, not necessarily bad news, but news that might prove a deterrent to embarking on a SharePoint branding exercise. And that is that it can get quite complex if your ambitions are high.
A complex SharePoint branding endeavour will typically involve a lot of skillsets including those of a designer, IT expert, business analyst and so on. While this is not beyond the capabilities of most organisations, you can anticipate a heavy investment in time and resources.
A simple approach to branding
The good news is that a straightforward SharePoint branding initiative can be carried out without the need of specialist skills. Customising the fonts, colours and images within your SharePoint sites is pretty easy and the impact can be quite strong. There's nothing to be scared of here!
SharePoint themes are the way to go when it comes to a 'light touch' approach to branding. Using these themes, you have a smorgasbord of combinations to choose from and to get your branding started. You can mix and match, try different feels and quickly work your way towards the look-and-feel that best reflects your organisation's corporate image.
In the video below we will guide you step by step through the theme/branding process at its most basic level. Within a few minutes you'll know what you need to make your SharePoint intranet sites consistent with your corporate brand. You'll be impressed with the results, and with how simple it all is.
So, enjoy experimenting with the kaleidoscope of options available to you!
You can read more about Professional Advantage and SharePoint here.
