Clear decisions need clear systems.

A brand portal handles assets that are finished. Photography spends most of its life before that point.

Access defined on a person has to be maintained. Access defined on the asset and the link holds without anyone remembering.

An approved image is not automatically a usable image. Approval records acceptance. Permission records what the use may be.

AI tagging describes what is in an image. It does not decide what the image is for. The question is authority, not accuracy.

Delivery ends the project, not the asset. What gets lost afterwards is not the files – it is the structure around them.

Version chaos is not a naming problem. A filename cannot record which version is current, what changed, or who decided.