SharePoint Brand Center: How to Set It Up and What Changes in October 2026
TL;DR
SharePoint Brand Center is Microsoft's central app for managing your organisation's fonts, colours, images and themes across SharePoint and Viva Connections. Admins turn it on in the Microsoft 365 admin center. From October 2026, you can set it up without enabling the tenant-wide Public CDN, which is only needed if you use custom fonts.
Consistent branding is one of the quickest ways to make a SharePoint intranet feel trustworthy and "ours". Yet many organisations still rely on site owners picking colours one site at a time. SharePoint Brand Center was built to fix that.
This month, Microsoft added a roadmap item that makes Brand Center easier to adopt. RM571391, published September 17, 2026 and due in October 2026, makes Public CDN optional during setup. Here's what Brand Center does, how to set it up, and what the change means for you.
By Yvette Tunguia, Content Unit Manager at ShortPoint • Last Updated: September 2026
What Is SharePoint Brand Center?
SharePoint Brand Center is a centralised branding app in Microsoft 365. It lets brand managers store approved brand assets in one place so site owners can apply them consistently. Microsoft rolled it out to general availability between September and October 2024 (MC876288).
It manages four main asset types:
- Brand fonts in .ttf, .otf, .woff or .woff2 format, grouped into font packages.
- Brand colours saved with hex values.
- Themes built from your primary, accent and background colours.
- Brand images such as logos, banners and backgrounds.
Fonts and themes apply across SharePoint sites and Viva Connections. There's one Brand Center per tenant.
What's Changing in October 2026?
Until now, turning on Brand Center also turned on the tenant-wide Public CDN (content delivery network). A Public CDN serves files from a public cache so they load fast worldwide. It was bundled mainly to deliver custom fonts.
That created friction. Some security teams were wary of Public CDN, and files served from it can be reached by anyone with the URL (CodeTwo). So organisations that only wanted governed colours and themes had to accept a tenant-wide setting they didn't need.
From October 2026, Microsoft says admins can "set up Brand Center without enabling Public CDN," and enable it later when they need capabilities such as organisational fonts (RM571391).
| Before October 2026 | From October 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| Public CDN at setup | Required | Optional |
| Colours and themes | Available | Available without Public CDN |
| Custom organisational fonts | Needs Public CDN | Still needs Public CDN |
| Existing tenants | Public CDN already on | No automatic change; review before disabling anything |
Note: If Public CDN is already on in your tenant, don't switch it off just because the requirement is changing. Other solutions may rely on it. Check first in SharePoint Online Management Shell (Windows Forum):
Get-SPOTenantCdnEnabled -CdnType Public
Get-SPOTenantCdnOrigins -CdnType PublicFor the security and governance side of this change, read SharePoint Brand Center no longer requires Public CDN .
How Do You Set Up SharePoint Brand Center?
You'll need a Global Administrator to turn it on. After that, brand managers do most of the work.
1. Turn it on
In the Microsoft 365 admin center, go to Settings > Org settings > Brand center. Microsoft creates a dedicated Brand Center site.
2. Decide on Public CDN
Before October 2026, you must agree to enable it. After the change, you can skip it unless you plan to use custom fonts.
3. Choose your brand managers
Control who manages branding through permissions on the Brand Center site.
4. Add brand colours
Enter each colour with its hex value and a clear name.
5. Create themes
Combine primary, accent and background colours. Check contrast so text stays readable.
6. Upload fonts and build font packages (if using Public CDN)
Each package pairs up to two font families, a display font and a content font, mapped to four slots: Title, Headline, Body and Interactive.
7. Apply to sites
Site owners pick your theme and font package from Change the look on their site.
Font package details come from Microsoft Learn.
Where Do Brand Center Fonts Actually Appear?
Microsoft Learn (updated June 24, 2026) lists 16 SharePoint areas where font packages apply. These include the site and hub headers, navigation, page title, text web part, and the News, Hero, Quick links, Button, People and Call to action web parts. In Viva Connections, fonts apply to the greeting, section headings, dashboard cards and resources.
Two limits worth knowing before you start: Font packages can't be deleted, only edited or hidden, so test with care. And on hub-associated sites, the hub's theme takes priority over a site's own choice.
Brand Center Best Practices
- Pilot first. Apply new themes to two or three test sites before publishing them widely.
- Name themes clearly. "Corporate – Light" and "Corporate – Dark" are easier for site owners than "Theme 4".
- Keep the list short. A few approved themes are easier to govern than twenty.
- Check accessibility. Test colour contrast for text, buttons and links against WCAG guidelines.
- Plan for mobile. Microsoft's redesigned SharePoint mobile app for iOS and Android, with a new Discover experience and dark mode, is due in October 2026 (RM571200). Check your logos and colours on phones, in both light and dark mode. See how to prepare for the new SharePoint mobile app.
What Brand Center Does and Doesn't Do
Brand Center governs brand assets: fonts, colours, themes and images. It doesn't design your pages. Layouts, visual hierarchy, rich components and page templates are still up to site owners working with SharePoint's standard web parts.
That's the gap many intranet teams notice after setting up Brand Center. Sites become consistent in colour and type, but they don't necessarily look designed. For ideas on closing that gap, see 5 modern SharePoint intranet designs and how to design a SharePoint site .
How ShortPoint Helps
ShortPoint builds on your SharePoint branding with no code. Its Theme Builder lets you brand your environment in a few clicks, and the template library (included with every plan) gives you professionally designed intranet pages to start from. The AI Designer generates complete page layouts with automatic brand theming, right inside your own SharePoint after trial activation. ShortPoint is a Microsoft Solutions Partner, WCAG 2.1 compliant, and used on 350K+ SharePoint sites. See How to Make a SharePoint Site Look Like a Website for design ideas.
Explore ShortPoint intranet templates →The Bottom Line
SharePoint Brand Center is the simplest way to keep fonts, colours and themes consistent across your intranet. The October 2026 update removes the main reason some organisations held back: you'll no longer need Public CDN just to govern colours and themes. If you've been waiting, now is a good time to plan your setup.
Want your branded sites to look fully designed too? Try ShortPoint free for 15 days (no credit card required) or explore the template library .
Start your free 15-day trialFrequently Asked Questions
SharePoint Brand Center is a Microsoft 365 app for managing your organisation’s brand fonts, colours, themes and images in one place. Site owners can then apply approved themes and font packages to SharePoint sites and Viva Connections. It became generally available in late 2024.
Today, yes: Public CDN is enabled during setup. From October 2026, Microsoft makes it optional, so you can set up Brand Center for colours and themes without it. Custom organisational fonts will still need Public CDN.
A Global Administrator turns on Brand Center in the Microsoft 365 admin center under Settings > Org settings. After that, access for brand managers is controlled through permissions on the Brand Center site.
No. Each Microsoft 365 tenant has one Brand Center. Organisations with several brands usually create separate, clearly named themes and font packages within it.
No. According to Microsoft Learn, font packages can be edited or hidden but not deleted. Test new packages on pilot sites before making them visible to everyone.
Brand Center themes and fonts apply across SharePoint sites and Viva Connections. Microsoft’s redesigned SharePoint mobile app is due in October 2026, so review how your branding looks on mobile, including dark mode, once it arrives.
Yvette Tunguia
Content Unit Manager, ShortPoint
Yvette Tunguia is Content Unit Manager at ShortPoint, where she writes about SharePoint intranet design, structure, and adoption. ShortPoint is used to design and brand SharePoint intranets across 350,000+ sites worldwide.
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