Branding Overview & Theme Presets
Your branding is the look and feel that runs across your whole website: your colors, fonts, button shapes, header, footer, and more. Instead of styling every page by hand, you set these choices once and they flow automatically to every page, blog post, and section you create. Change your main color, and every button on your site updates. That consistency is what makes a website look polished and professional.
Everything lives in one place: Site Settings → Branding, titled "Customize your website's look and feel." This is where you make your site feel like your business.
Who can edit branding
Branding and Site Settings are available to Site Admins. If you're signed in as a Site Editor, you won't see the Branding or Site Settings areas. Editors focus on creating and updating page and blog content, while Admins control the overall design. If you expected to see Branding and it isn't there, ask whoever owns your site to check your role or make the changes for you.
The live preview
As you change any branding setting, a live preview updates right alongside your choices so you can see the effect before you commit. Pick a new heading font, nudge your primary color, switch to pill-shaped buttons. The preview reflects it immediately. This lets you experiment freely without touching your real pages. When you're happy, save your changes and they go live across your site.
A few things worth knowing about the preview:
- It's a representative sample of common elements (headings, body text, buttons, cards, and your header and footer), not an exact copy of any one page. It's there to show relationships: how your fonts, colors, and shapes work together.
- In the Layout sub-tab, the preview includes a Desktop / Mobile toggle so you can check how your header and footer behave on both a computer screen and a phone.
- Nothing you see in the preview affects visitors until you save.
Theme presets: the fastest way to start
If you're not sure where to begin, a theme preset gives you a professional baseline in one click. A preset sets your typography, shape, effects, and button styles all at once to a coordinated combination that's known to look good together.
Important: applying a preset keeps your colors exactly as they are. Presets never touch your Primary, Secondary, or Accent colors, so you can lock in your brand colors first, then try presets to find a style that fits, and your colors stay put through all of it.
| Preset | What it sets | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Professional (pre-selected for new sites) | DM Sans font, medium corner rounding, soft shadows | A clean, trustworthy, all-purpose look (great starting point for most businesses) |
| Modern | Inter font, pill-shaped buttons | A crisp, contemporary, tech-forward feel |
| Editorial | Playfair Display and Crimson (elegant serif fonts), square corners | A refined, magazine-style look: designers, studios, hospitality, boutique brands |
| Bold | Manrope font, large corner rounding, sharp shadows | A confident, high-impact style that grabs attention |
| Minimal | Geist font, no shadows, ghost (outline-free) buttons | A quiet, understated, whitespace-heavy aesthetic |
| Custom | Nothing. Leaves your current settings alone | When you've already fine-tuned things and don't want a preset to overwrite them |
To apply one:
- Go to Site Settings → Branding.
- Choose a theme preset (for example, Professional or Modern).
- Watch the live preview update to show the new baseline.
- Save.
After applying a preset, you're free to tweak anything: change a font, adjust corner rounding, swap a button style. The preset is a starting point, not a lock. You'll never lose your colors, and you can revisit presets any time.
The five branding sub-tabs
Branding is organized into five sub-tabs. Each one has its own detailed guide:
- Identity: your logos and favicon, your Primary / Secondary / Accent colors, optional text colors, and the site-wide eyebrow tag style. See Choosing Your Colors and Logo, Contact Details & Navigation Menus.
- Typography: your heading and body fonts, their weights, and fine spacing controls. See Fonts & Typography.
- Shape & Effects: corner rounding for buttons, cards, images and more, plus shadows, borders, and the keyboard focus ring. See Shape, Effects & Button Styles.
- Buttons: your default button look (solid, outline, or ghost) and button shadow. Also covered in Shape, Effects & Button Styles.
- Layout: your header and footer styles and all their options, plus the site-wide sticky call-to-action. See Header Styles & Options and Footer Styles & Options.
Good to know
- Your changes apply everywhere. Branding is intentionally global. Set your styles once and they carry across every page and post. You don't (and can't) style individual pages with their own fonts or colors, which is exactly what keeps your site looking consistent.
- Colors are always safe from presets. No matter which theme preset you apply, your brand colors stay exactly as you set them.
- Start broad, then refine. A good order is: set your colors → pick a theme preset that feels right → adjust fonts and shapes to taste → shape your header and footer in the Layout tab.
- Use the preview to compare. Because presets don't touch colors, you can flip between them quickly to audition looks against your real brand colors before saving.