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Logo, colours, fonts and layout

Use the design editor to add your logo and icon, pick an accent colour and fonts, and adjust your theme’s layout, with a live preview.

Who can do this: Owners and Administrators, on every plan.

The design editor is where you make a theme your own. You change settings on the right and see the result on the left before anything goes live. Readers see nothing until you select Save.

1. Open the design editor

  1. In your site’s admin, go to Settings.
  2. Under Site, find Design & branding and select Customize.
The Design & branding row in Settings, described as “Customize the style and layout of your site”, with a Customize link.

The editor opens over the whole screen. On the left is a preview of your site; on the right are the settings, in two tabs: Brand and Theme.

The Design editor: a preview of The Northern Ledger homepage on the left with Homepage and Post tabs, desktop and mobile buttons and a View site link; the Brand settings on the right with Close and Save buttons.
Preview on the left, settings on the right.
  • Homepage and Post switch the preview between your homepage and your most recently published post.
  • The laptop and phone buttons switch between a desktop and a mobile preview.
  • View site opens your live site in a new tab.

2. Set your brand

The Brand tab holds the settings every theme uses. They stay with you when you switch themes.

The Brand tab: Accent color with a colour swatch, Publication icon with Upload icon, Publication logo with Upload logo, Publication cover showing the current cover image, and Typography with Heading font and Body font set to Theme default.
SettingWhat it does
Accent colorYour main brand colour. Themes use it for buttons, links and highlights, including the Subscribe button. Select the swatch to pick a colour or type a hex code such as #c2410c.
Publication iconThe small square image shown in browser tabs, bookmarks and some social previews. Upload a square image at least 60×60 pixels; a simple mark works better than your full logo.
Publication logoShown in your site’s header, usually in place of the site title. A wide logo on a transparent background works best.
Publication coverA large image some themes show at the top of the homepage. To change it, remove the current image with the bin button, then upload a new one.
Heading font and Body fontChoose from a set of web fonts, or leave Theme default to use the fonts the theme was designed with. The preview shows each font as you pick it.

3. Adjust your theme’s layout

The Theme tab shows options that belong to your active theme, so they differ from theme to theme. They’re grouped into Site wide, Homepage and Post. To see the effect of the Post options, switch the preview to Post.

The Theme tab for the Source theme with Site wide settings: Navigation layout set to Logo in the middle, Site background color, Header and footer color set to Background color, Title font and Body font set to Modern sans-serif, and Signup heading and subheading fields.
The options for Source, the default theme.

For Source, for example, you can choose where the logo and menu sit, the background and header colours, the homepage header style and text, whether the homepage shows featured posts and images, and whether posts show the author, date, drop caps and related articles.

4. Check it on a phone

Many readers will see your site on a phone. Select the phone button above the preview to check that your logo, header and colours work on a small screen.

The design editor showing a mobile-sized preview of the homepage, with the site title, a menu button, the headline and a subscribe form.

5. Save

Select Save. Your changes go live straight away. To leave without changing anything, select Close.

What readers see

  • Your logo, colours and fonts appear on every page of your site, including the signup and account pop-up, which uses your accent colour.
  • Your publication icon appears in browser tabs and when people bookmark your site.
  • Newsletters have their own design settings. See email design.

Good to know

  • Your menu items are not in the design editor: they’re in Settings › Navigation. See pages and navigation.
  • Some themes ignore some settings: a theme without a cover area won’t show your cover image, for example. The preview always shows what your theme actually does.
  • Your browser may keep an old icon for a while after you change it. Open your site in a private window to check.
  • Need a change the editor doesn’t offer, such as a small CSS tweak? Use code injection, or on Publisher and Business, edit or upload a theme.

Last checked against the product on 7 November 2026.

Related

Choose and switch themesBrowse the official themes, preview one and make it your site’s design. Your posts, pages and members stay exactly as they are.Pages and your site’s navigationCreate standalone pages like About and Contact, and choose what appears in your site’s menus.Add custom code to every pageAdd your own HTML, CSS or scripts to the header or footer of every page of your site, or of a single post, page or tag.Upload your own theme (Publisher and Business)Upload a custom theme as a zip file, activate it, edit its code in the browser, and fix the errors that stop a theme from working.

Still stuck?

Tell us what you were trying to do and what you saw, and we’ll help you sort it out.

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