Pixel is a digital asset management (DAM) solution for the Danforth campus.

Hosted by Widen and managed by Washington University Marketing & Communications, Pixel serves as a unifying system for storing WashU photography, videos and other digital assets. It is a centralized tool for communicators, marketers and campus partners to access and share digital assets to help advance the university’s brand and reputation.

Through a partnership with the University Libraries, Pixel serves as a gateway for Danforth campus digital assets to the university archive for long-term preservation.

Pixel reduces pain points such as…


  • Decentralized digital storage (various people storing photo files in various places with different or unknown access rights, formats or versions)
  • Resource-intensive processes to find digital assets
  • Difficulty in governing brand standards across photography asset collections
  • Cumbersome sharing processes (e.g., multiple email attachments or multi-layered box folders that may expire or be deleted)

Pixel adds value to WashU by…


  • Strengthening our brand
    • Allowing better control over the way we manage assets
    • Encouraging stronger brand consistency and integrity
    • Providing higher level protection of and adherence to Intellectual Property (IP)
  • Increasing efficiency
    • Cutting back on time spent searching for photos
    • Creating consistent, university-approved assets and collections
    • Making file sharing and conversion options easy for internal users and external partners
  • Reducing costs
    • Decreasing duplicated or misplaced work and workflow redundancies

Additional benefits


  • Higher quality work
  • More time for creating photos with broad user appeal
  • Promotes relationship building and collaboration across schools, units and partners

Your contribution matters

The success of Pixel is not only the responsibility of its administrators. It also depends on YOU.

We depend on our users’ commitment to maintaining brand standards and excellence. It’s a new way of working, and we can’t do it without your help.