How to Create and Manage Themes in Sitecore Content Hub?

Sitecore Content Hub is a comprehensive platform designed for managing digital content across multiple channels. It allows organizations to centralize their digital assets, manage the entire content lifecycle, and collaborate across teams. It integrates various capabilities like Digital Asset Management (DAM), Product Content Management (PCM), and Marketing Resource Management (MRM), making it an all-in-one solution for handling content and marketing operations.

In this blog, we will explore how to manage themes within Sitecore Content Hub, enabling you to customize the platform's appearance to align with your brand identity and deliver a consistent user experience.

Importance of Themes

In content management, themes refer to pre-defined styles, layouts, and components that determine the appearance and feel of a website or digital content. A theme typically includes elements like typography, colors, spacing, and other design choices.

In the context of Sitecore:

• Themes help ensure consistent branding across multiple pages and digital platforms.
• They simplify design management by applying a unified look and feel across different content pieces without requiring individual customization.
• Themes improve efficiency by allowing content teams to focus on creating content while adhering to brand guidelines seamlessly.

In Sitecore Content Hub, themes are essential for:

• User experience: Enhancing the end-user experience by maintaining consistent design.
• Efficiency: Enabling faster deployment of design elements, reducing time spent on layout and appearance.
• Brand consistency: Ensuring uniformity in branding across multiple touchpoints, vital for brand integrity.

Understanding theme in Sitecore Content Hub

In Sitecore Content Hub, a theme defines the overall look and feel of the user interface for digital content, including its layout, colors, fonts, and other design elements. It plays a significant role in ensuring that the content is presented consistently across different touchpoints, aligning with an organization's branding guidelines.

Definition of a theme

A theme in Sitecore Content Hub is a collection of predefined design settings and components that dictate the visual presentation of content across different digital platforms. It ensures that content is displayed uniformly, making it easier to manage and update.

Components of a theme

A well-structured theme is an essential part of Sitecore Content Hub architecture, ensuring seamless content delivery and brand consistency. The key components of a theme include:

1. Layouts: These define the structural organization of a webpage or digital interface, such as grids, sections, and templates for content placement.

2. Typography: The font styles, sizes, and spacing that define how text is displayed.

3. Colors: The primary and secondary color schemes that establish the brand's visual identity.

4. Icons & Buttons: Predefined styles for UI elements like icons and buttons that maintain consistency in user interactions.

5. Images & Backgrounds: Specifications for the use of images and background settings, ensuring alignment with the brand.

6. Spacing & Margins: The spacing rules that create a consistent visual flow between content sections and elements.

7. Widgets & Components: Reusable visual elements (e.g., image galleries, carousels) that can be integrated into various pages.

How themes are applied in Sitecore Content Hub

• Selection: A theme is chosen or customized based on the brand's design specifications.
• Application to content: Once set, the theme is automatically applied to the digital content, such as images, text, and video, ensuring uniformity across platforms.
• Customization: Themes can be fine-tuned to meet specific content requirements. For instance, you can adjust layouts, change colors, or tweak typography based on project needs.
• Integration with Digital Asset Management (DAM): The theme is applied to all assets managed in the DAM, ensuring that digital assets follow the same visual guidelines when used across campaigns or platforms.

Themes help streamline the content creation process by ensuring that designers, content creators, and marketers are all working within the same visual framework, ensuring brand consistency and reducing design errors.

How to create themes in Sitecore Content Hub

Creating themes in Sitecore Content Hub involves a series of steps that enable you to define and apply a consistent look and feel across all digital content. Here's a step-by-step guide to creating a theme effectively.

Step 1: Log in to Sitecore Content Hub

Start by logging in to your Sitecore Content Hub account using your administrator credentials.

Step 2: Access the themes section

• Navigate to the settings section in the top menu.
• Under Settings, locate and click on the Themes option. This will take you to the interface where you can view and manage existing themes.

Step 3: Create a new theme

  In the Themes section, click the Create Theme button. You’ll be prompted to enter basic information for your new theme.

Step 4: Define basic theme properties

• Name: Provide a name for your theme to help distinguish it from others.



• Description: Add a brief description explaining what the theme is used for (e.g., specific campaigns, product pages, etc.).
• Status: Choose whether the theme is active or inactive.

Step 5: Configure layouts

• In the Layouts tab, you can select or customize the layout structure for your theme.
• Define header, footer, and page structures that best suit your content needs. This will create the foundation for how content is displayed.

Step 6: Set typography

Under the Typography tab, configure your fonts and text styles:

• Choose fonts for headers, body text, and special sections.
• Define font sizes, line heights, and letter spacing.
• Apply specific font weights (e.g., bold, regular, etc.) to various sections.

Step 7: Apply Colors

In the Colors section, define your primary and secondary color schemes:

• Set colors for text, background, buttons, and other UI elements.
• Ensure that the colors align with your brand guidelines for consistency across digital platforms.

Step 8: Define Images and Icons

  Customize the Images & Icons settings:

• Specify default images for backgrounds, logos, and other visual elements.
• Select or upload icons for buttons and actions that users will interact with.

Step 9: Adjust spacing and margins

In the Spacing or Margins tab, adjust padding and margins to control the spacing between elements on your pages. This ensures a clean and well-organized layout.

Step 10: Add components and widgets

• If your theme requires specific components (e.g., carousels, image galleries, contact forms), you can configure these under the Components/Widgets section.
• Select pre-built components or customize new ones according to your requirements.

Step 11: Save and apply the theme

• Once you've configured all the theme settings, click Save.
• You can apply the theme to specific projects or campaigns by navigating to the appropriate content sections and selecting the theme from the available options.

Managing Themes in Sitecore Content Hub

Sitecore Content Hub allows users to customize and manage themes to ensure consistent branding and user experience across the platform. Here's a step-by-step guide to managing themes within the platform:

1. Editing an existing theme

• Go to the Themes section, find the theme you want to modify, and click on it.
• Update any settings such as layout, colors, typography, or components, then click Save to apply changes.

2. Activating/deactivating themes

• In the Themes list, toggle between activating or deactivating a theme to control its availability.
• This is useful if you want to temporarily disable a theme for maintenance or testing.

3. Cloning a theme

• If you need to create a new theme based on an existing one, use the Clone option.
• Modify the cloned theme to meet your specific needs without starting from scratch.

4. Assigning Themes to specific projects

To ensure consistent application, assign your theme to specific projects or pieces of content through the Project Settings or directly within the DAM.

What’s Next?

Creating and managing themes in Sitecore Content Hub allows you to maintain visual consistency across your digital assets and streamline the content creation process. By following these steps, you can easily design, customize, and manage themes to align with your brand's design guidelines, improving the overall user experience.

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