What is An Intranet Design Theme? When it comes to your intranet, you aren’t just stuck having to learn to love your intranet design. You can easily change your design theme. You can create many design themes.

An intranet design theme is a uniform collection of design elements and color schemes that are applied to the intranet to give a consistent and appealing look and feel. Using a design theme is an easy way to add appeal to pages and give them a professional look.

What are the Design Theme Elements?

I am so glad I asked that question. A design theme affects all aspects of the intranet’s appearance, it’s colors, graphics, and fonts.

• A design theme uses a color scheme to set the color of body text, header text, navigation, links, borders, all site backgrounds – really anywhere there is color on your intranet. I have written about this before so I won’t repeat myself here but if you are interested in how to get your brand colors into your intranet theme than read my previous blog the Dos and Don’ts of Intranet Design.
• A design theme uses graphics for page elements such as the top header bars, background images, and navigation icons.
• A design theme uses its own fonts for the body text and headings.

Themes let you manage your pages’ appearance in one place. When you choose one theme to be the default theme for your intranet, the theme is applied to all existing pages and to new pages that you add later. You can change the default theme or remove it, and the change is applied to the entire site automatically. You also have the option of applying themes to individual pages or sites.

But I like the default theme. Why should I change it?

BECAUSE ITS THE DEFAULT THEME THAT’S WHY. Your company is not default, is it? You are unique. You are special. Don’t make me use the “E” word. I was trying so hard not to say “engagement“. Now look what you made me do. Freshen up your design theme and just sit back and let the love pour in.

To what could I possibly change my design theme?

The only limit on your design theme is your creativity. Sadly this is where many people are screwed. Here at IC Thrive, we like to do themes for special days, seasons and upcoming events. Canada’s 150th Birthday is obviously a huge holiday in Canada so consider changing the design theme to reflect your holiday colours!

If you need further inspiration you can peruse some of our previous blogs on the topic – 5 Highly Effective Financial Intranet Examples and 3 Highly Effective Intranet Examples.

What if I do something stupid and blow up the intranet?

Who can honestly say that they haven’t blown up the occasional intranet or small public building from time to time? I know I have. Well thankfully you can save your original theme as something creative like “Default Theme” BEFORE you create a new theme. The key word in that phrase being “before”. There is no point saving a theme AFTER it has blown up your intranet. Because that would be stupid. You want to have a clean, functioning theme to fall back on should the need arise.

Final thoughts on design themes

Don’t be content with a default intranet design theme. Spread your wings and try out a new design, your users will thank you and so will your intranet.

If you would like like to comment below, we’d love to hear from you.