Organisations today use photography across far more touchpoints than ever before, from marketing and communications to employer brand, internal platforms and regional campaigns. Licensing models, however, have not always evolved at the same pace.
The result is familiar: uncertainty around usage rights, cautious reuse, duplicated shoots, and image libraries that deliver far less value than the investment behind them.
At Global Assignments Agency, we developed the Brand Library Licence to address this gap, a licensing framework designed specifically to support how organisations actually use photography across multiple teams, channels and markets over time.
Most photography licences are structured around individual campaigns or defined outputs. This works in isolation, but quickly breaks down when imagery needs to be reused across:
Without clear, future-facing usage rights, organisations either restrict themselves unnecessarily or expose themselves to risk. In many cases, teams fall back on generic stock imagery to avoid complexity, sacrificing authenticity and differentiation in the process.
The Brand Library Licence is a client-focused licensing model developed by Global Assignments Agency to support commissioned photography intended for long-term, multi-department use.
In practical terms, it allows organisations to commission photography once and use it confidently across the majority of brand, marketing and internal communication channels, over an agreed multi-year period.
Rather than licensing imagery narrowly by output or platform, the Brand Library Licence is aligned with how brands actually operate, across teams, regions and evolving use cases.
All imagery is:
This removes ambiguity and allows photography investment to accumulate value rather than reset with each new brief.
A Visual Brand Library is built over time, not through isolated shoots, but through planned, intentional commissioning.
The Brand Library Licence provides the legal and commercial foundation for this approach. It enables organisations to:
Unlike stock imagery, which is licensed, non-exclusive and disconnected from the organisation itself, Brand Library photography is owned in intent, even while copyright remains with the photographer.
Many organisations use the Brand Library approach to photograph their own employees and working environments.
This is not simply an aesthetic decision. Photography featuring real people and real contexts:
Employees become natural brand ambassadors, and imagery gains relevance and longevity across marketing, employer brand and internal platforms.
The Brand Library Licence is designed to support organic brand use, including:
Paid advertising usage, such as lead campaigns, media buys, outdoor or broadcast advertising, is intentionally excluded and licensed separately where required.
This reflects how imagery is realistically used and valued, ensuring clarity, fairness and appropriate commercial alignment for both clients and photographers.
By commissioning photography locally, through trusted professional photographers, organisations benefit from:
The Brand Library Licence provides a pragmatic, well-governed framework that stands up to internal scrutiny while remaining flexible enough to support real-world brand use.
This licensing model has been shaped by decades of managing photography for organisations operating across multiple markets and departments.
It reflects how photography is commissioned, reused and evolved in practice, not just in theory.
The Brand Library Licence underpins our Visual Brand Library service, enabling organisations to build long-term photographic assets with confidence, clarity and continuity.
For organisations commissioning photography regularly, the question is no longer just how images look — but how they function over time.
The Brand Library Licence supports:
It is a smarter, more sustainable approach to commissioned photography, designed for how modern organisations actually work.
“When a client of mine wanted to renew their licence, Pam was quick to clarify the terms and agree a structure that worked for everyone. The process was straightforward, the client was comfortable with the usage, and it set a clear foundation for future work. I always value her advice on estimating and licensing, and regularly recommend her to other photographers.”
Remy Whiting
Award-winning commercial photographer and on-call firefighter
