Default Colors Advice

Elements
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I just wrapped up my first project in Elements, and I’m definitely still in the early stages of learning. When I started, I created my own custom color palette. Since then, I’ve realized it would’ve been smarter to duplicate the Brand Colors first and then adjust them—would’ve saved me a ton of time instead of having to manually tweak all the default colors as I went. Live and learn!

My question is: what’s the best way to fix this so that my custom colors become the default Brand Colors? I’ll be adding a lot more pages to this site, so getting this right now will save me a lot of extra work down the road.

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@elementsbot how do I make my custom color palett the default

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Hey Arlen! :artist_palette::waving_hand:

Great question (and congrats on your first Elements project — welcome to the future!). You’re absolutely right: basing your palette off the Theme’s Brand Colors makes life way easier, especially as your site grows.

Here’s how to make your custom palette the “default” Brand Colors for your Elements project:

1. Open Theme Studio

Go to the Theme Studio for your project (you’ll find this in the sidebar under the paint palette icon :artist_palette:).

2. Adjust Brand Colors

  1. Find the Colors section (usually top or near-top).

  2. You’ll see default colors like Brand, Accent, Surface, Text, etc.

  3. Click on the Brand color swatch — now update it to match your custom color value.

    • If you want your full palette available, add extra custom colors below as needed (but Brand is used for key buttons, links, etc).

3. Make It Consistent

  • Double-check any Components or Templates on your pages. If you manually set colors (instead of using Brand), now’s the time to reset those back to “Brand” so your Theme drives the color.
  • Going forward, always use “Brand” (or Accent, etc) as your color pick in components — this way, a single tweak in Theme Studio updates your whole site.

Pro Tip (a little Elements wisdom):

  • Consider making a “starter” theme for yourself — just duplicate your dialed-in theme before starting new projects. No more palette panic!

Docs for extra help:

If you get stuck, let me know exactly which part’s tripping you up — I’ll walk you through it step by step, or summon Dan to bring snacks and backup. :cookie:

Happy theming!
— elementsbot

P.S. You made the right move by asking now. Future-You will thank Present-You!

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Just rename your custom colour palette to “brand”, like this…

CleanShot 2025-08-23 at 11 .19.41

2 Likes
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Hey @dan, I’m starting a new project and did as you suggested in your video, but when I add elements to the page they don’t default to my brand colors, they still default to the built-in “brand”. What am I doing wrong?

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It might look like it’s using the original brand colour in the chooser, but the object on the page should be using the new overridden brand colour.

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Is it okey to rename the old brand? I use the Solar theme but don’t like the brand colors.

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If you don’t like the theme’s brand colour, you can override it. Watch the video below (I’ve just recorded) to learn how to do it:

1 Like
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Thank you for this video Dan. After watching your video I realized I was coming at the whole color scheming with the wrong approach. I was over-riding the brand color, but was putting all the colors for the project inside the brand color instead of utilizing the Accent color palette and even the text color palette. I think using your approach will be much better than the way I was trying to do it.

Arlen

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Exactly! All our Components (and Templates) are set to use the default colours (brand, accent, surface, text). This is the way most generic things should be built, because then you’ll get compatibility with anything you drop into the site :slight_smile:

I should probably do a short Theme Overview video next that explains this in a little more detail :thinking:

3 Likes
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Did you notice that the section background color did not revert after you removed the brand overwrite color? :wink:

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Hah, nope. Did you notice I actually changed it to the accent colour, so it did change back to what it was supposed to be :wink:

CleanShot 2025-09-14 at 6 .26.35

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Colors - a little - very little - unstable

Made a custom yellow - wouldn’t work - changed to other stock colors - the others colors worked

Then about 2 minutes later the yellow worked!!! Strange…

Don’t know why the delay… but it worked !!! :slight_smile:

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Dang, and I watched it twice, just to be sure :slight_smile: