SharePoint Brand Center No Longer Requires Public CDN: A Guide to Intranet Branding Governance

What Changes in Brand Center Setup in October 2026?

Microsoft published the update on 17 September 2026 (RM571391).

In Microsoft's words, Public CDN was enabled "even when an organization only wants to use branding governance capabilities that do not require it". Now you can start with governance and add the CDN later, if you need it.

What Is SharePoint Brand Center?

SharePoint Brand Center is a central app for managing your organisation's brand across Microsoft 365. According to Microsoft Learn, it manages:

• Colours and colour schemes (themes).
• Fonts, including custom organisational fonts.
• Images such as logos, icons and backgrounds, stored in the Organization Asset Library.

A few set-up facts worth knowing:

• Only a Global Administrator can set it up, from Settings > Org settings > Brand center in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
• There is one Brand Center per organisation, created in the primary geo.
• Brand managers upload and manage assets; site owners then apply them.

For a full walkthrough, see our SharePoint Brand Center setup guide .

What Still Needs Public CDN?

Custom organisational fonts still depend on Public CDN. In multi-geo tenants, custom fonts across geographies need an Organization Asset Library with Public CDN enabled in each geo (Microsoft Learn).

So the first question for many teams is simple: do we actually need a custom font on SharePoint? If a standard font is close enough to your brand, you may never need Public CDN for Brand Center.

Why Security Teams Paused Brand Center

Public CDN caches static files such as CSS, JavaScript, images and fonts closer to users. It works at tenant level, and files in Public CDN origins can be accessed anonymously. That's why guidance warns admins to keep sensitive material out of any library used as a Public CDN origin (Windows Forum).

For regulated organisations, that was enough to put Brand Center on hold.

Before you change anything, check your current set-up:

1. See if Public CDN is on:

Get-SPOTenantCdnEnabled -CdnType Public

2. List its origins:

Get-SPOTenantCdnOrigins -CdnType Public

3. Find out why each origin exists. Other solutions may rely on it, so don't switch it off without checking.

Security-driven platform changes are becoming common. See also SharePoint Online CSP enforcement in 2026 .

A Branding Governance Model for Large SharePoint Estates

Brand consistency across hundreds of sites is a governance problem, not a design problem. A simple model has four parts:

The payoff: Once branding is governed centrally, site owners spend their time on content, and employees get the same trusted look everywhere.

Rollout Steps

1. Agree with security whether you need Public CDN at all (usually: do you need custom fonts?).
2. Set up Brand Center once the update reaches your tenant, and assign brand managers.
3. Upload approved colours, logos and images.
4. Share the Brand Center site link with site owners, with a one-page guide.
5. Pilot on your main hub sites, then roll out to the rest.

Looking for what a consistently branded estate can look like? Browse these SharePoint intranet examples and the best SharePoint site designs .

How ShortPoint Helps

Brand Center sets the brand. Pages still need to use it consistently. ShortPoint Theme Builder lets intranet teams apply brand colours, fonts, headers and footers across SharePoint sites without code, and new design elements follow the brand rules you set. Paired with the template library, included with every plan, it helps every new page look on brand from the first draft, without asking site owners to be designers.

Conclusion

The Public CDN requirement was a real reason to wait. From October 2026, it's no longer a blocker for branding governance. Check your current CDN use, decide whether you need custom fonts, and put a simple governance model in place so your intranet looks consistent everywhere.

Want every SharePoint page on brand without code? Start your 15-day free ShortPoint trial, no credit card needed.

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