Professional SharePoint 2013 Administration

Chapter 12

Branding SharePoint

WHAT’S IN THIS CHAPTER?

• Understanding Branding from a SharePoint Perspective
• Components of SharePoint Branding
• What’s New in Branding for SharePoint 2013
• Understanding the SharePoint 2013 Branding Process
• Upgrading Branding to SharePoint 2013
• Controlling Access to SharePoint

In this chapter, you’ll learn what it takes to brand a SharePoint 2013 site, including some of the various components you’ll likely encounter when dealing with branding, and what changes have been introduced with SharePoint 2013 and how they relate to your job as an administrator. By the end of this chapter, you will be able to achieve the nirvana that is known as “making SharePoint not look like SharePoint.”

WHAT IS BRANDING?

Branding is a familiar term whose meaning varies depending on the context in which it is used. If you’re in the supermarket, maybe you’re trying to decide whether to get the known name brand of a bag of chips, or if you should save a little money and go with the store brand instead. If you are a ranch hand, maybe you’re thinking of marking cattle with red-hot branding irons. If you are in marketing, you understand how a company’s product or service can be represented through its logo, colors, slogan, website, and advertisements. With these variations in mind, it might be useful to spend a bit of time considering what branding means to you, the SharePoint administrator, and why you should care about it.

When you think of well-known products or companies ...