Themes dictate the look, the layout and some of the functionality of your blog. The WordPress-developed themes (such as Twenty Twenty, Twenty Twelve, etc.) are offered on this network.
Selecting and Activating a Theme
- Make sure you are in the Dashboard of your blog.
- In the left-hand menu, find the Appearance section heading and click on it. This will bring up the Manage Themes page.
- Look through the available themes. Once you have found one you like, you can click on the corresponding Preview button to see how your site content might look with this theme. If you want to apply this theme to your blog, click the Activate link.
- After activating a theme, look in the Appearance section of the left-hand menu again, you might see some new links that allow you to modify some of the settings of the theme. What you are able to change will depend on the theme you choose – keep reading this page for more info on customizing themes.
Customizing Your Theme
Theme customization is largely dependent on which theme you choose. Some themes are provided ‘as-is’, providing a static look and feel, while others permit some level of customization (most commonly, the header image).
To save you some time searching through the themes we’ve included, I’ve grouped them below based on customizability. (Please note that while we will try to keep this list up-to-date, it may not include the most recent themes added).
*Note: for those of you with experience using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets, a code used to modify the look & feel of websites), there is a feature in the Customizer that will allow you to add styles on top of your theme.
The themes that WordPress has developed are available on this blog network, as they take accessibility into consideration and update their themes to work with each update of WordPress.
Here are a few examples:
- Twenty Ten
- Twenty Eleven
- Twenty Twelve
- Twenty Thirteen
- Twenty Fourteen
- Twenty Fifteen
- Twenty Sixteen
- Twenty Seventeen
- Twenty Nineteen
- Twenty Twenty
- Twenty Twenty One
Accessibility
Ensuring your site is usable by everyone is incredibly important. As such, you will want to choose a theme that has been deemed ‘accessible’. We are currently testing all of our existing themes and plugins to evaluate their level of accessibility.
Please see our page on accessibility for details, and for a list of recommended themes.