Brand modern SharePoint Online sites

By João Ferreira Mar 11, 2018 Branding, Office 365 12 Comments

With SharePoint Online modern sites the branding options that used to available with Classic sites were removed, however Microsoft introduced new alternatives to apply you company brand to SharePoint.

The new theming experience allow site owners to apply themes to all modern pages in the site collection, to deliver new engaging and familiar looks.

By default, there are 8 themes available but you as an Administrator can create and deploy your owns, in this article you will find instructions on how to achieve it.

SharePoint Branding

Create the theme

To create the color themes Microsoft provides the Theme Generator, an online tool that generates the color palette to be deployed in the tenant.

In the tool you will be able to introduce the primary theme color, body text color and body background color. The Fabric palette is generated in three formats, JSON, SASS and PowerShell, as an Admin you will need to use the PowerShell version.

Open the Theme Generator
Define your colors
Save the PowerShell version of the schema

Deploy the theme

To deploy new SharePoint themes, you will need to install SharePoint Online Management Shell, and you will need to be a SharePoint Admin.

To connect to your SharePoint Online environment open PowerShell and execute the command:
```
Connect-SPOService -Url https://contoso-admin.sharepoint.com
```

In the console create a PowerShell variable with the generated color pallet

$customTheme = @{
"themePrimary" = "#ff0000";
"themeLighterAlt" = "#ffeded";
"themeLighter" = "#ffd1d1";
"themeLight" = "#ff9090";
"themeTertiary" = "#ff3f3f";
"themeSecondary" = "#ff0b0b";
"themeDarkAlt" = "#e60000";
"themeDark" = "#a30000";
"themeDarker" = "#8c0000";
"neutralLighterAlt" = "#f8f8f8";
"neutralLighter" = "#f4f4f4";
"neutralLight" = "#eaeaea";
"neutralQuaternaryAlt" = "#dadada";
"neutralQuaternary" = "#d0d0d0";
"neutralTertiaryAlt" = "#c8c8c8";
"neutralTertiary" = "#a6a6a6";
"neutralSecondary" = "#666666";
"neutralPrimaryAlt" = "#3c3c3c";
"neutralPrimary" = "#333333";
"neutralDark" = "#212121";
"black" = "#1c1c1c";
"white" = "#ffffff";
"primaryBackground" = "#ffffff";
"primaryText" = "#333333";
"bodyBackground" = "#ffffff";
"bodyText" = "#333333";
"disabledBackground" = "#f4f4f4";
"disabledText" = "#c8c8c8";
}

To deploy the theme run the command below, define the custom Name that will be visible on SharePoint online and in the Palette argument reference the variable created on step #2
```
Add-SPOTheme -Name "Contoso Theme" -Palette $customTheme -IsInverted $false -Overwrite
```
To validate if the theme was successfully deployed run the command below and validate if it is listed

Apply the theme

Open your modern site and click on the cog icon
Click on Change the Look
Select your custom theme and click Apply

Conclusion

This method will not deploy the newly created theme to the classic sites, if you want to have your brand applied consistently to all the sites you will need to create a classic theme, to apply it automatically with PowerShell you can follow this article.

When compared with the classic themes, the modern version will only change the colors, the option to change the font and the background image is only available to the classic themes.

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12 Responses to “Brand modern SharePoint Online sites”

David Noble
March 14, 2018

After I updated my SharePoint Online Management Shell. It worked perfectly.
Dave
May 16, 2018

Now, how do you remove the default themes?
- João Ferreira
  May 16, 2018
  
  Hi Dave,
  
  I don’t think it’s possible to remove the default themes.
  - Tomek
    June 1, 2018
    
    you can remove them by running this: Set-SPOHideDefaultThemes $true
    - João Ferreira
      June 1, 2018
      
      Thanks Tomek,
      
      I’ll update this article with the command to hide the default ones
    - João Ferreira
      June 1, 2018
      
      Thanks Tomek, I will add this tom complement the article
      - Nick
        August 27, 2018
        
        I have applied custom themes using powershell shown above and which are visible when I run Get-spotheme but do not show in the tenant under the modern site change the look? any idea why this might be?
      - João Ferreira
        October 10, 2018
        
        Hi Nick,
        
        To make sure this is correctly installed you need to execute it with a tenant admin account.
        A few months ago Microsoft had issues with the change the look functionality but they are now solved, I just retested the steps and I was able to get the new theme.
        
        Regards,
        
        Joao Ferreira
David Ramalho
October 9, 2018

Hey João,

The SharePoint PNP team have also released this functionality below are the commands for this effect:

Add-PnPTenantTheme -Identity “My Theme” -Palette $customTheme -IsInverted $false
Get-PnPTenantTheme
Remove-PnPTenantTheme -Name “”
Marno
April 11, 2019

Thanks!

Helped-me a lot!
Eric
May 24, 2019

I’m new to PowerShell…I’ve been able to paste in the theme palette code, but I can’t escape from the double “>>” prompt to be able to enter the next command. How do I get back to the “ps c:\” prompt?
- João Ferreira
  June 10, 2019
  
  Hi Eric,
  
  I’m not sure if I understood your issue, to get the theme installed you just need to open the PowerShell console and execute the commands described in step 1,2 and 3.
  If the issue persists please share with me an image of the issue so I can get a better understanding of it.