The Vanday Blog
Notes on digital asset management for small creative teams — from the makers of Vanday, the DAM that thinks like your team.
Your favorite tool didn't get worse. It got acquired.
Good software rarely dies with a bang. It gets acquired, the roadmap goes quiet, and one day you look up frozen in time. I watched it happen — from the inside.
Read the postThe best DAM software for $50–200/month
The honest middle of the DAM market: what you actually get between $50 and $200 a month, which tools live there, and how to pick — from someone with 20+ years in digital asset management.
The best DAM for small creative teams (and small businesses that create a lot)
Small teams don't need a smaller enterprise DAM — they need a different kind of tool entirely. What to look for, what to skip, and an honest comparison from a 20-year DAM veteran.
Bynder and Canto alternatives for small teams (an honest guide)
Enterprise DAMs are built for enterprise problems. If you're a small creative team pricing Bynder or Canto, here are the alternatives actually sized for you — including honest reasons to pick something other than mine.
What you see is what you get
Vanday is new — but new doesn't mean fragile. Here's exactly what you get: the infrastructure, the honest commitments, and a real person behind it, run like the small shop on Main Street.
You Don't Have "A Few Logos." You Have 56 Files You Haven't Met Yet.
Every young brand thinks they're too small for a DAM. Then they change one wordmark — and spend two days hunting down the damage. Here's the math nobody runs.
You'll Give Up on the Sixth Folder
Folders feel like organizing. They're really just hiding. Here's the layer almost every team skips — and why it's the one that actually lets you find anything.
A Newborn Brand Answers Five Hard Questions
Five brand questions made me stop and write down what Vanday actually stands for. Here are my answers — unedited — before I had it all figured out.
Do You Really Need a DAM?
You're probably getting more out of your current setup than you think — and quietly losing more than you realize.
The Worst Time to Organize an Asset Is Later
Every DAM tells you to tag it later. "Later" is where assets go to die. The only moment that actually counts is the one most tools waste — the upload.
The Hidden Cost of "It Only Takes a Few Minutes"
"It only takes a few minutes" is the most expensive sentence in your workflow. The real bill is context switching and inconsistent output — here is what it actually costs, and what fixes it.
Controlled Vocabulary Isn't Dead. It Got a Promotion.
AI took over the tagging. So why do you still need a list of approved words? Because the list isn't for your team anymore — it's for your AI.
AI and DAM: Where It Shines and Where We Still Fight
AI is rewriting digital asset management — tagging, search, distribution, even creation. After 20+ years in DAM and hundreds of users onboarded, here's what's working, where the fights still happen, and what I learned the hard way.
Why we built Vanday
Most digital asset management tools are built for enterprises with a librarian on staff. Small creative teams need something that does the boring bits for them. That is the gap Vanday fills.
Your DAM Is a Gym Membership
Buying digital asset management software isn't the same as using it. Why DAM adoption fails — and the rollout playbook that actually makes it stick.
The Asset You Paid For Is Probably Lost Right Now
A short history of digital asset management — and why the core problem of finding your own creative never actually went away.