One account, several brands
Agencies, multi-channel operators and creators running a main channel plus a clips channel all hit the same wall: Thumblore's library is organised by project and template name, and avatars are a flat named list. There are no nested folders. Without a convention, two brands' assets interleave and you spend your time hunting instead of shipping.
The fix is a naming discipline that makes the flat structures behave like folders. It costs nothing to adopt and it scales to a dozen brands.
The prefix system
Everything — avatars and template names — starts with a short brand code. Two to four characters, all caps, no spaces.
| Asset | Pattern | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Avatar (host) | BRAND-Host | ACME-Host |
| Avatar (guest) | BRAND-G-Name | ACME-G-Sam |
| Avatar (alt look) | BRAND-Alt | ACME-Alt |
| Series thumbnails | BRAND — series — ep N | ACME — how-to 12 |
| One-offs | BRAND — format — topic | ACME — versus — A vs B |
| Experiments | BRAND — SANDBOX — note | ACME — SANDBOX — red test |
Avatar names cap at 20 characters
Which is why the brand code has to be short. ACME-G-Sam fits comfortably; AcmeCorporation-Guest-Samantha does not. Pick codes of two to four characters on day one — renaming later means renaming everything.
Setting up a new brand
- Assign the code. Two to four characters. Write it in the brand's record so nobody invents a second one.
- Save the faces.
CODE-Hostfirst. Guests as you need them. See creating an avatar, or design a character if the brand is faceless. - Build the brand kit. The eight decisions, recorded per brand — this is the document that lets someone else produce on-brand work.
- Build three reference frames. Reaction, comparison, list. Named with the prefix. These are the brand's working set.
- Bookmark the filtered view. Projects filters live in the URL, so a per-brand filtered link is effectively that brand's folder.
What "folders" look like in practice
| You want | How you get it |
|---|---|
| A brand's thumbnails | Filter Projects by that brand's template names; bookmark the URL |
| A series inside a brand | Filter by the full BRAND — series string |
| A brand's faces | The avatar picker sorts the prefix together |
| A brand's templates | The three downloaded reference frames, kept in a folder on disk named for the brand |
| A brand's rules | Its brand-kit document |
Note the split: what Thumblore stores (thumbnails, faces) is organised by prefix; what you keep outside it (reference frames, brand kits) sits in real folders on your own machine. Trying to keep everything in one place is what makes multi-brand workflows painful.
Which plan this needs
Multi-brand work runs into the avatar cap fast — a host plus two guests per brand, times four brands, is twelve faces. Pro (unlimited saved avatars, plus face swap and pop-out) is the realistic floor. Studio adds unlimited character generation and the largest credit grant, which matters when several brands are shipping weekly. See plans and limits.
Keeping brands genuinely distinct
The risk of running several brands from one account is not disorganisation — it is homogenisation. You develop habits, and every brand starts to look like your house style.
- Different palette per brand. Non-negotiable. It is the fastest recognition cue there is.
- Different grade per brand. Brand A cinematic, brand B bright and flat.
- Different text position per brand. Left on one, right on another.
- Different face, obviously.
- Audit them side by side quarterly. Put one thumbnail from each brand next to the others. If you cannot tell them apart, you have one brand with four names.
Working with a team
The prefix system's real payoff is delegation. A VA or editor given the brand code, the brand kit, the three reference frames and the naming convention can produce on-brand thumbnails without asking you anything: open the matching frame, swap the face, replace the headline, download, name it with the prefix. If that hand-off does not work cleanly, the missing piece is almost always the brand kit rather than the tooling.