Branding & theming

Branding controls how the platform looks to everyone who signs in: the logo in the corner, the title and tagline, the colour palette behind every button and surface, and whether the interface opens in light or dark. Getting it right means the platform feels like yours, whether that’s a company university, a customer education portal, a higher-ed programme, or a school.

What this does

Branding sets the visual identity applied across the administrative and learner experience for one organization: a theme template, a light/dark default, logos and favicon, the platform title and slogan, footer links, login-page backgrounds, and — if you want to go further — individual colour, font and radius overrides.

Sub-organizations inherit branding from the nearest ancestor that has set it, so you usually configure the parent once and it flows down. Inheritance happens in clusters, not field by field:

Theme cluster — theme template, theme mode, custom-theme overrides and the user light/dark toggle inherit together. A sub-organization that turns on Custom Theme or saves any override keeps its whole theme.
Logo cluster — the light and dark logos inherit as a pair. Set either one on a sub-organization and it stops inheriting both.
Login-background cluster — all four background slots inherit as one unit. Set any one of them and the sub-organization keeps all four of its own.
Everything else — favicon, platform title, slogan, terms/privacy/landing links and motion intensity fall back one field at a time.

Before you start

Check the organization switcher at the top of the sidebar first. Branding is saved per organization.
Have your logo files ready: one that reads on light backgrounds and one for dark. Transparent PNG or SVG works best.
Know your colour values. The pickers accept a hex like #7c3aed or an HSL fragment like 262 83% 58%.

Set your branding

Open Org settings from the sidebar and stay on the Branding tab. The panel is headed Branding & Theme.
Pick a Theme Template — Default, Sunrise or Forest. This is the starting palette.
Set Theme Mode — System, Light or Dark.
Decide whether to leave User Light/Dark Toggle on. When it’s off, your organization’s theme mode is enforced and people cannot change it.
Fill in Platform Title and Platform Slogan. The title is what appears next to the logo; the slogan sits under it.
Add Landing Page Website, Terms Link and Privacy Link if you have them. These appear as small links at the bottom of the user menu in the dashboard.
Upload Primary Logo (Light), Primary Logo (Dark) and a Favicon. Each slot shows Upload until a file exists, then Replace.
Optionally set the four Login Page Background images — Left panel and Behind form, each with a Light and a Dark variant. If only one variant of a pane is set, it’s used for both modes. These render on the login page of a custom domain. Around 2560×1600 is recommended; large photos are optimised automatically.
Use the Preview block and its Light/Dark switch to check the result before saving.
Press Save Branding.

Go further with token overrides

If a template isn’t close enough, turn on Custom Theme and edit the values under Custom Theme Overrides. Editing any override switches Custom Theme on for you automatically.

The overridable tokens are: Primary, Secondary, Accent, Background, Foreground, Card, Card Text, Border, Ring, Sidebar Background, Sidebar Text, Sidebar Primary, Gradient Start, Gradient End, Display Font, Body Font and Radius. Colour fields accept a hex value or an HSL fragment; the font and radius fields accept ordinary CSS values.

Reset Theme Overrides clears every override and turns Custom Theme back off, returning the organization to the selected template. It doesn’t clear your logos or titles. Like every other change on this panel, it only takes effect once you press Save Branding.

Two other switches on this panel

Two organization-wide behaviours live on the Branding tab even though they aren’t visual identity:

Motion intensity — Full (all animations, the default), Reduced (fades only) or None. This caps UI animation for everyone in the organization. A person’s operating-system “reduce motion” setting always wins over this.
Fuzzy directory search — off by default. When on, searching the member directory for “jhon” also finds “John”. Leave it off to keep exact-match semantics.

Reference

Setting	What it controls
Theme Template	Base palette: Default, Sunrise or Forest
Theme Mode	System, Light or Dark on first visit
Custom Theme	Enables the per-token overrides below the preview
User Light/Dark Toggle	Whether people may switch light/dark themselves
Motion intensity	Caps UI animation org-wide (Full / Reduced / None)
Fuzzy directory search	Approximate matching in the member directory
Platform Title / Slogan	The name and tagline shown beside the logo
Landing Page Website / Terms Link / Privacy Link	Links shown at the bottom of the user menu
Primary Logo (Light) / (Dark)	Logos for light and dark surfaces
Favicon	The browser-tab icon
Login Page Background	Four images for the custom-domain login page
Custom Theme Overrides	14 colour tokens plus display font, body font and radius

When the user light/dark toggle is on, a person’s choice is saved to their account. See Profile, language & theme.

Troubleshooting

Nothing I changed was kept. The theme, text and link controls on this panel are a draft until you press Save Branding. Leaving the tab or switching organization first discards the draft.

I replaced a logo, didn’t save, and the old one is gone. Uploading over a slot or clearing it removes the previous file straight away, before you save — so keep your own copy of any image you replace. Only the choice of image is held in the draft.

My logo looks cut off or has a white box behind it. The image likely has a solid background or tight padding. Re-export as a transparent PNG or SVG with a little breathing room, then Replace it.

The dark-mode logo is invisible. A dark logo on a dark background disappears. Upload a light or white version into the Primary Logo (Dark) slot specifically.

My colours are hard to read. Toggle the Preview between Light and Dark before saving — the preview renders the resolved tokens for both modes, including the sidebar.

A sub-organization still shows the parent’s branding. That’s inheritance working. Because theme, logos and login backgrounds each inherit as a cluster, you have to set something in the cluster you want to break: turn on Custom Theme (or save one token override) for the theme, or upload one logo to take over both logo slots.

I set a login background but don’t see it. Those four images only render on the login page reached through a custom domain — not on the shared Lurno sign-in address. See Connecting a custom domain.

Animations still play after I set motion to None. Motion intensity caps animation but a person’s device setting takes priority; it can’t force animation back on, only off.