Questions & Answers

What is Custom Design?

Custom Design is an upgrade that lets you customize fonts with ease or add your own CSS code to change the appearance of any of the 180+ free and premium themes on WordPress.com.

Our goal for the Custom Design upgrade is to help you make beautiful websites. We’d like to create a place where you can customize a theme to fit you perfectly, that is exactly how you want to present yourself to the world, and that your’re excited to show to your friends and colleagues. We invite you to find the perfect theme for your project and be inspired by the talented designers featured in our customization showcase.

How can I try it?

Go to Appearance → Custom Design → Fonts and select any fonts to see a live preview. To try the advanced CSS editor, go to Appearance → Custom Design → CSS, add some CSS, and click the preview button.

What can I do with it?

The Custom Design upgrade lets you select from 50+ custom fonts for your site title, headings, and body text. It also comes with a CSS editor that gives advanced designers the ability to completely customize the appearance of any WordPress.com theme’s existing HTML structure using CSS.

What fonts are available?

There are 50+ fonts available. You can see them in your WordPress.com blog’s Appearance → Custom Design → CSS page.

How can I learn more about CSS?

The best base for learning about CSS is to understand HTML first. Try out an HTML beginner tutorial to learn how HTML structure works, and then move to a beginner CSS tutorial to learn how to apply CSS properties and values to your theme’s HTML elements. Find out how to inspect elements using tools such as Chrome’s browser development tools to see what CSS applies to the element you clicked on.

Learning to apply CSS can be frustrating if it doesn’t do what you want at first or you’re not sure where to start, but it’s so much fun once you are able to make your blog your own and give it an extra spark! If you have questions, join our talented and helpful community in the CSS Customizations forum.

Can I add my own theme or fonts?

You may not upload a theme or add your own web fonts on WordPress.com, but you can opt to use blank themes like Toolbox or Sandbox as a starting point for adding your own custom design. In addition, you can setup a Typekit account and use the advanced mode for custom fonts to get access to more fonts from the Typekit library.

What other kinds of fancy things can I customize using advanced CSS techniques?

The possibilities are endless! :) From hiding a specific element to creating an entirely new design from scratch, the CSS editor gives you freedom to make design changes to any elements that are placed by the theme you are using. Some notable examples are:

For other issues you can’t find answered in the forums already, please post a new thread in the CSS forum for each one. We can’t wait to see what you create!