Organizing Design Assets

Asset libraries provide a foundational level of organization for design resources, but complex web solutions often require more detailed classification. As Clarity expands, their design needs have become more diverse. With an expanding customer base in multiple regions, managing the volume and variety of design assets becomes challenging. To maintain efficient design workflows across regions, Liferay’s taxonomy features provide enhanced organization within asset libraries. These features include Categories and Tags.

Building Asset Hierarchies

Liferay categories can group assets by content, purpose, format, or some other shared characteristic. They support hierarchical organization, so you can nest subcategories and classify your content in as much or as little detail as you wish. Categories themselves are grouped into vocabularies. A vocabulary defines the scope and visibility of the categories it contains. Together, categories and vocabularies form a taxonomy, a structured classification system for design assets.

While taxonomies are primarily used as part of the content management toolkit, they are still important for designers and developers. If you’re designing a content-rich web solution with regular updates, it’s critical to consider how your assets are organized. Without structure, managing assets becomes chaotic. Designers should plan categories and vocabularies early, using taxonomies for formal, top-down structures that integrate with site architecture (e.g., navigation, display pages) and help enforce content standards.

Assigning Asset Keywords

Tags are keywords used to classifying assets. While categories provide structured organization based on a theme or topic, tags enable you to search and filter assets by a specific characteristic. Tags are not structured or hierarchical, so you can assign them to assets across categories. Also, you can define tags as needed when working with assets.

Similar to categories, tags are primarily a content management tool focused on user-driven classification. Their freeform nature initially offers less direct value to designers. However, as asset repositories grow and collaboration expands, tags can improve asset accessibility through search and navigation.

Conclusion

Liferay’s asset libraries include taxonomy features for organizing design assets and making content more accessible. With categories and vocabularies, you can implement top-down hierarchies to enforce organizational standards. With tags, you can make your assets more accessible to other users in your organization. Organizing assets is critical for maintaining the scalability and consistency of Clarity’s web solution.

Next, you’ll use these taxonomy features to classify Clarity’s distributor assets.