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Appearance

Choose Personal or Blog presentation, publication branding and navigation, then fine-tune your theme.

Your page → Appearance changes how the whole site looks. Nothing is applied to visitors until you save.

Personal or Blog

Personal is the default: your profile, links, writing and work, with the existing compact layout. You can hide the profile photo or introduction without deleting either.

Blog gives your publication a name or logo, top navigation and a posts-first homepage. Choose List or Cards for recent posts; both work without cover images. Individual articles keep their readable text column and Markdown features, including syntax highlighting.

Switching presentation preserves your posts, personal profile, subscribers, domain and URLs. When first switching to Blog, enter a publication name; later, edit the name, description and About page under Site details. A blog without a saved personal name asks for your public name when you switch back to Personal. Your account name is never substituted automatically.

Blog branding and navigation

  • Publication logo is optional. Wide logos retain their proportions. Upload a JPEG, PNG, GIF or WebP up to 10 MB, then save. With no logo, the name is shown. Show the logo without the name beside it suits logos that already include the title.
  • Navigation defaults to Home, Archive and About; About appears after you add an introduction in Site details. Customize up to five links, change their labels and order, hide individual links, or remove all links. Built-in destinations appear when enabled and available; custom destinations accept a safe /path on your site or a complete https:// or http:// address.
  • Primary action adds one optional Subscribe, Contact or custom-link button. Enable signups in Subscribers or contact in Settings to make those destinations available.
  • Author details are optional and controlled in Site details. They are separate from publication branding.

Preview and save

The private preview on the right updates as you click, for published and unpublished websites. Switch between Desktop and Phone, or use Open preview to see the current design in a new tab.

An unpublished website stays private while you preview it. Open preview also opens your current unsaved design in a new tab. Links inside the embedded preview keep your unsaved design as you explore articles and other pages.

Click Save changes when you are happy with the design. Leaving the page or switching websites with unsaved changes asks for confirmation. A failed save keeps your choices available to retry, and edits made while saving remain marked as unsaved.

Settings

Setting Choices
Preset Paper (default), Ink, Sand, Forest, Slate, Rose. Each is a coordinated set of background, text and card colours.
Accent Any colour, used for highlights and buttons. Leave empty to use the preset’s own accent.
Mode Light, Dark, or Auto (follows each visitor’s device). Code blocks switch to a dark highlighting theme automatically.
Fonts Manrope; Inter + Lora; Fraunces + Source Sans; IBM Plex. All are served by Mezaic, with no third-party font requests.
Avatar shape Squircle, Round, Square.
Buttons Pill or Rounded.
Cover image A wide image behind the header. JPEG, PNG, GIF or WebP up to 10 MB; resized to at most 1600px wide on upload and counted against your storage at the stored size.
Favicon The small icon in browser tabs and bookmarks. Upload a square image (it is resized to 256px); a simple shape on a plain background reads best at 16px. Leave it empty and your publication logo or personal profile photo is used, then your public initial on the accent colour.

Reset to Paper resets colours, fonts, mode and corner styles. It keeps your presentation, branding images and navigation.

Which plans

Presentation and publication branding are separate from cosmetic theme customization. Blog presentation requires a plan with publishing; losing the paid Appearance feature does not turn your blog into a personal profile. Without cosmetic customization, your site uses Paper in light mode; saved theme choices remain available when you upgrade. Check the matrix in Plans and what’s included.

Tips

  • Auto mode is the safest default: readers who prefer dark get dark, everyone else gets light.
  • Pick one accent and keep it; the same colour is used for your featured link cards and spotlights.
  • The cover works best at about 1600 × 500 pixels with the focus in the middle; the edges are cropped on phones.