© Mickael Bandassak / Ten Days Paris.
How Time Out transforms publishing workflows with Fotoware Veloz
A global brand with growing demands
Time Out’s mission is to inspire and enable people to experience the best of the world’s cities, from the food concessionaires of Time Out Markets to the hidden gems featured on the Time Out websites. To capture the energy, culture, and uniqueness of each city, high-quality visual assets are essential.
Originating from its magazine roots, Time Out has evolved into a fully digital platform. Today, the brand produces a constant stream of imagery and editorial content across its online and mobile channels, and through its Time Out Markets in Lisbon, Porto, New York, Chicago, Boston, Barcelona, Montreal, Cape Town, Dubai, Bahrain, Osaka, and recently Budapest.
Their creative teams span various business units, including Time Out Media and Time Out Market each needing fast, secure, and centralized access to images, PDFs, and other media assets to tell stories that resonate with audiences worldwide.
Read more about Time Out Group here. >
The biggest challenge: running out of space and flexibility
As one of the early lifestyle media brands to embrace digital publishing, Time Out has long relied on a DAM system to manage their brand assets and power fast-paced editorial and marketing operations.
The most significant challenge they faced with their Fotoware on-premises DAM solution for hosting their Brand Media Assets Library was running out of space on their server, which was hosted by an external provider. This limitation hindered their ability to store all assets in one place, pushing teams to rely on external solutions like Google Drive.
As a result, they encountered duplicated files, difficulties locating assets, and increasing problems with rights management.
A clear case for change
Recognizing the need for a scalable and future-proof solution, Time Out began evaluating a move to SaaS. Time Out’s internal project team worked closely with Fotoware consultants to build a strong business case. Key decision-makers from IT, legal, procurement, and finance were involved in the process to ensure alignment and long-term value.
The benefits were clear: migrating to Fotoware Veloz would eliminate the costs of maintaining on-premises servers, reduce reliance on internal IT resources, give flexibility in storage capacity, and unify Digital Asset Management in one robust, secure, and centralized system.
The migration
Time Out’s migration was a strategic choice. The team migrated more than 700.000 files - 6.5 TB of mostly images, videos, and PDFs - and consolidated 29 legacy indexes into just four centralized asset pools, making it easier for users to search, access, and manage assets. Synchronization between the old and new systems was handled with care to avoid downtime and data loss.
The migration was completed swiftly and with no downtime, providing immediate access to improved workflows and storage flexibility.
— “For a fast-moving media company, uninterrupted access to assets was critical. The migration to Fotoware Veloz was carefully planned to ensure zero downtime while consolidating workflows and indexes.”
The Result: unified, modern workflows with growth potential
With the move to Fotoware Veloz, Time Out has not only modernized its asset management but also enhanced the way its teams work across publishing, photography, rights management, and marketing, and they’ve strengthened how they bring stories to life visually.
The SaaS platform also provides the scalability needed to support ongoing growth. Time Out has already expanded usage to the two major business units: Time Out Media and Time Out Market, and can now launch new regions with greater speed and consistency, ensuring every expansion is backed by the same high standards.
Upgrades to their publishing workflow
The Time Out Media’s publishing workflow now benefits from faster and more reliable access to visual assets as well as PDFs across Media platforms and marketing. Editorial teams can curate content more efficiently thanks to Smart Folders and albums and easily expand their media workflows into new cities.
Improved image upload workflow
The image upload workflow has also become more seamless. Photographers can now upload photos directly to Fotoware Veloz from the Fotoware Mobile App while on site. Alternatively, pictures can benefit from advanced pre-ingestion workflows when uploading from the desktop application Fotostation. Now, images are available in near real-time, reducing delays and giving editors instant access to fresh, approved content.
Perfect combination: Fotostation and InDesign
The combination of Fotostation with InDesign was once a fragmented process has become streamlined, from capture to design, saving significant time and ensuring that the right versions of images are always used.
Rights and licenses under control
Their rights management also benefits greatly. With Fotoware Veloz, Time Out can apply copyright policies and track usage across all business units, reducing the risk of misuse. Teams have more confidence when reusing images, knowing that permissions and licenses are clearly managed within the system.
A central hub for marketing & communications
The marketing and communication teams now have a central platform that brings all their assets together, supporting collaboration across global business units and ensuring everyone works with the latest, rights-managed content. This has improved both internal collaboration and external partner engagement, ensuring brand consistency across locations and campaigns.
In summary
The migration to Fotoware Veloz has done more than solve a storage issue. It has empowered Time Out to focus on creative output and ensures better governance over their content. Time Out now produces and shares visually rich stories faster, more accurately, and at a larger scale. Every image, layout, and campaign now supports the brand’s mission to capture the pulse of the world’s cities and share it with a global audience eager for authentic, inspiring experiences.
Positioned for the future
Time Out have also built a strong foundation for growth. With the platform in place, the SaaS setup makes the onboarding of new business units a smooth process, supporting Time Out’s continued international expansion.
The team is now also exploring new features like Auto-tagging, an AI-driven feature to automate metadata tagging for consistency and time-savings. There is also potential to extend the solution with the new Fotoware Flow, a workflow automation tool that can streamline processes such as file renaming and purging for a tidier archive.
Time Out’s successful transition is a clear example of how a modern SaaS DAM solution can help media companies keep pace with digital demands while continuing to do what they do best: inspiring worldwide audiences with images and stories.
