Choose a ready-made theme

A theme is a set of colours and a pair of fonts that belong together. Choosing one is the quickest way to make the site look like your choir. You can then change the colours or the fonts separately.

The Theme section of Site Settings is not a form like the others. It is a picker with five parts, from top to bottom:

Part	What it does	Explained in
Start from a theme	Sets colours and fonts together	This page
One colour	White pages with one colour of yours	Change your colours
A palette of four colours	A dark, coloured look	Change your colours
Fonts	The lettering	Change your fonts
Preview	Shows the result before you save	Below

On a self-hosted site, a Site Admin sees a sixth part, Custom style sheet: see Add a custom style sheet.

How the parts fit together

A theme is a shortcut, not a setting of its own. Selecting a theme's card does two things at once: it selects one of the colour choices further down, and it selects one of the font pairings. Only those two choices are saved.

So you can pick the nearest theme and then change either half. If you do, no card says Chosen any more, because your combination is no longer one of the fifteen. Nothing is wrong: your site simply has its own mix.

Choose a theme

1. Go to Site Settings → Theme.
2. Under Start from a theme, select a card. Each shows the theme's name on its own colours, with a line saying who it was made for. The chosen card has a darker border and its line begins with Chosen.
3. Look at the Preview further down the page.
4. Select Save.

The Theme section of Site Settings showing the Start from a theme cards, each with its name on a band of its colours and a line of description, one of them marked Chosen

Until you save, nothing on your site changes. Discard changes puts the picker back to what your site has now.

The fifteen themes

A new site starts on Plain. The guided setup suggests one of the others when you say what kind of choir you are.

Theme	Made for	Colours	Fonts
Plain	Any choir. White pages and one colour, which you can change to your own.	Midnight (one colour)	Plain
Concert Hall	Community and concert choirs. Traditional and warm.	Evergreen & Gold	Classic
Symphonic	Symphonic and festival choruses. Formal, with weight.	Midnight Blue & Brass	Editorial
Chamber	Chamber choirs and early music. Quiet and refined.	Ink & Silver	Elegant
Cathedral	Cathedral and church choirs. Stone, candlelight and carved lettering.	Stone & Candlelight	Liturgical
Parish	Parish and chapel choirs. Rich, welcoming, easy to read.	Burgundy & Champagne	Friendly
Gospel	Gospel choirs. Royal purple, gold and a confident voice.	Royal Purple & Gold	Bold
Spotlight	Pop and rock choirs. Dark, loud and modern.	Neon Night	Bold
Showtime	Show choirs and musical theatre. Curtain red and poster lettering.	Curtain Red & Spotlight	Poster
Studio	Contemporary a cappella and vocal ensembles. Clean and understated.	Slate & Copper	Modern
Barbershop	Barbershop choruses and quartets. Candy stripes and a vintage slab.	Candy Stripe	Vintage
Hearth	Folk, world and community singing groups. Earthy and relaxed.	Terracotta & Sage	Friendly
Playground	Children's choirs. Bright, round and cheerful.	Sky Blue & Sunshine	Playful
Schoolyard	School and training choirs. Fresh green and friendly letters.	Meadow & Buttercup	Bubbly
Wave	Youth choirs. Fresh, light and a little different.	Lagoon & Coral	Bubbly

Plain is the only theme built on one colour. The other fourteen each use a palette of four colours, which gives the site a dark, coloured top and footer. The difference is described in Change your colours.

Every colour and font behind these names is listed in Themes, palettes and font pairings.

The top of the public home page twice, side by side: on the left in the Plain theme with a white page under a band of colour, on the right in a four-colour palette with a dark coloured top

Check it in the preview

Under Preview is a small made-up page for a choir called Riverside Singers: a menu bar, a concert with two buttons, a light section with links, and a footer line. It is drawn in the colours and fonts you have selected, and changes as you select others.

Under it is the reminder: "This is how the site will look. Saving applies it; the admin panel keeps its own colours."

The Preview panel of the Theme section: a small sample page with a menu bar, a Next concert block with two buttons, a Rehearsals block and a footer line, drawn in the selected theme

The admin panel never takes on your theme. It always wears the colours of Choir Master CMS itself, so that it looks the same whatever you choose. Your theme is used on the public site and in the member portal.

After saving, select View site at the top of the section to see the real thing. A page you already had open picks up the new theme when you reload it or come back to its tab.