Now that we've got Drupal running and displaying some content, we may want to customize the look and feel of our site and make it our own. The default Drupal theme is called Garland and has a Blue Lagoon color scheme. Let's go ahead and see the available theme options.
We'll need to be logged into Drupal with an administrator account to configure themes. On the navigation menu select Administer, then Site building.
Within the Site building task category, we want to select Themes. The six themes that are installed with Drupal are listed with a screenshot, description, version, and available operations. Since Drupal is a multi-user content management system, it has the ability to customize the appearance of the same content for each user. There can only be one Default theme and authenticated users can choose one of several possible Enabled themes. Each Enabled theme will have configure Operations available. Note: After Enabling a theme you must click on Save Configuration to have the ability to perform Operations.
Go ahead and click on configure for the Garland theme. An interesting feature of the Garland theme is the ability to change the color scheme. There are over a dozen preformatted Color set options. Furthermore, there is a dynamic color wheel that can be used to select a custom color scheme with a live Preview below. For the configuration options below the preview, it is recommended that changes be made within the Global settings.
In the Global settings we can set some small changes that can have an immediate result on the appearance of your site. You should consult with the services of a graphic artist to design a logo that fits with the content of your site or your personality. If you feel that you've got the chops to design the logo yourself with Photoshop or GIMP, you may be able to save yourself some money. With the logo file in hand, go to the Logo image settings box and Upload logo image by hitting the Browse button and pointing it to the appropriate file on your local PC. After hitting Save configuration the default Drupal "Drop" logo will be replaced with the file you uploaded. You may need to play around with the size of your logo to achieve the desired overall look. If you do not have a logo file, and do not want to see the default Drupal "Drop" logo, uncheck the Use the default logo setting.
In modern tab enabled browsers, a shortcut icon file can be used to quickly differentiate your site from other sites opened within the same browser window. As we saw with the logo settings, the default shortcut icon is the Drupal "Drop". If you wish to replace the icon file with your own, click the Browse button adjacent to Upload icon image and upload an icon file from your local machine. If you do not have an icon file available the default icon can also be disabled by unchecking the Use the default shortcut icon setting; a blank page icon will be displayed when done is provided.
Once you have a custom logo in place you will probably want to stop displaying the Site Name to give your site a cleaner look. Go ahead and uncheck the Site Name option in Toggle display. The Site slogan is text displayed immediately to the right of the Site name. The Mission statement appears in a box above the title on the front page of the website. Again, to achieve a clean look, it is recommended you disable those options. On the off chance you want to display those options, the text settings can be found in Administer, Site configuration, Site information.
Congratulations, you have learned how to make basic changes to your site appearance using the installed themes. Move on to the next lesson to learn where to obtain royalty free Drupal themes and how to install them.