Get more out of your digital assets with effective taxonomy and metadata

Gepubliceerd op

30 November 2021

Last update 22/11/2024

Photos, videos, and other digital files… can you still do your job without them? The explosion of content is enormous, and data is flying around everywhere. The power lies in maintaining an overview, creating structure, and finding the right asset at the right time. Visual content automation helps with this, with extra attention to taxonomy and metadata. Chinese? Catena Company to the rescue…

PIM, DAM, taxonomy, metadata

As a designer, you need product information and digital assets to create a publication. The ideal situation is as follows:

The product information is collected in a PIM or Product Information Management system.

Digital assets (photos, videos, logos, illustrations, etc.) are managed in a DAM or Digital Asset Management system.

Taxonomy and metadata are the keys to success in these solutions. They speed up your workflow and ensure that you get the most out of your digital assets.

Taxonomy is a form of classification. Take biology, for example, where animals are classified into species and subspecies. The subspecies have all the characteristics of the species, but they differ from each other. The same applies in computer science. Taxonomy determines a classification and a hierarchy, making information from different systems easier to exchange.
Metadata refers to information about data, in this case digital assets.

Types of metadata

For a good understanding, it is important to distinguish between the different types of metadata: descriptive, structural, administrative, or technical. Let’s take Vermeer’s The Milkmaid as an example.

Descriptive metadataprovides basic information about this specific work. For example, the title, the name of the painter, or the year of production. This is information that you can associate with this work, but not with any other work by Vermeer or from the same year.
Structural metadata provides information about how this work can be categorized. For example, this is a Baroque (style) work from the Golden 17^th Century (period). This information allows the work to be placed in the correct context. Structural metadata determines the taxonomy of a DAM.
In this example, administrative and technical metadata can provide information about the purchase of the work or the conditions under which it must be stored, such as humidity and temperature. In digital files, this could include information about copyright or file size.

Investing in taxonomy and metadata pays off

The major advantages of good taxonomy and metadata are therefore that you:

Find the right digital assets faster.
You will achieve a much higher ROI from your DAM because you can use your digital assets much more effectively.

“Do I have to manually tag all those digital assets with metadata now?! Another tedious task to add to my to-do list…” – we can hear you thinking. No worries. Catena Company analyzes your data and digital assets and together we determine the optimal taxonomy and metadata strategy for your DAM. Assigning metadata to your digital assets can then be largely automated, as can its management. Thanks to this automation, we can apply metadata at a much deeper level, without any extra effort on your part. Visual content automation will do the magic!