Public documentation

See the setup before you buy.

This page covers the installation and maintenance workflow shared by every theme. For what every individual control does once the theme is running, go to that theme's settings guide.

Theme settings guides

Each theme's settings are documented in full — what every control does, where it appears on your site, and the things people reliably look for in the wrong place.

Magazine Society

Twenty settings: feed layout, ticker, rail, membership calls-to-action and three advertising slots.

Read the Society guide → Daily newsroom Broadsheet

Nine settings: breaking news ticker, time-of-day editions, section rows and the reading profile.

Read the Broadsheet guide → Culture magazine Manifesto

Ten settings: news ticker, homepage layout, podcast and authors rows, headings and newsletter wording.

Read the Manifesto guide → Interiors magazine Hamptons

Fifteen settings: fonts, accent and colour scheme, image or video hero, editors' picks, sections, most popular and social links.

Read the Hamptons guide → Newsroom & opinion Columnist

Twenty settings: masthead, paper palette, breaking news, homepage layout and sections, post options, reader tools and newsletter wording.

Read the Columnist guide → Church & ministry Sanctuary

Twenty settings: colour scheme and fonts, service schedule, live-stream link, homepage layout and hero, scripture verse, giving and forms.

Read the Sanctuary guide → Authors & essayists Blyton

Twenty settings: typography and colour scheme, homepage hero, featured book, newsletter prompts, membership tiers, reading tools and feed layout.

Read the Blyton guide → Red-top tabloid Splash

Twenty settings: masthead and ears, bar and highlight colours, breaking ticker, front page layout, section rails, sign-up placement and story options.

Read the Splash guide → Personal blog Blogga

Twenty settings: typeface and colour scheme, the homepage greeting, feed layout, featured style, year numerals, pagination and post reading features.

Read the Blogga guide →

Every guide is public, so you can see exactly how much control you get before spending anything.

Before you buy

Confirm your Ghost plan

Custom themes work on Ghost(Pro) Publisher or higher and on compatible self-hosted Ghost installations. Ghost(Pro) Starter does not allow custom themes.

Confirm the theme fit

Society is designed for magazines and long-form editorial publications. Broadsheet is designed for newsrooms and section-led newspaper publishing. Manifesto is designed for culture, arts and design magazines that want a loud front page, a podcast or a team of contributors. Hamptons is designed for interiors, architecture and travel magazines led by photography. Columnist is designed for opinion-led magazines, newsletters and independent newsrooms that want a broadsheet front page, columnists and a section builder. Sanctuary is designed for churches that want service times, sermons with audio, ministries, giving and prayer. Blyton is designed for authors, essayists and nonfiction writers who want long-form reading, a book showcase and reader-supported publishing. Open the Society, Broadsheet, Manifesto, Hamptons, Columnist, Sanctuary and Blyton product pages for feature and demo links.

Back up before changes

Before replacing or updating a live theme, download the current active theme from Ghost Admin and keep a current content export.

Installation

Download the theme ZIP from the Gumroad receipt or library.
Open Ghost Admin and go to Settings → Site → Design & branding.
Open the theme area and choose to upload a theme.
Select the downloaded ZIP and wait for Ghost to validate it.
Preview the theme with your content before activating it on the live site.

If Ghost rejects the upload, do not unzip and rebuild the package. Copy the validation message and email it with your Ghost version to [email protected].

Initial setup

Brand and navigation

Set your publication title, description, logo, icon and navigation in Ghost Admin. Review long navigation labels on both desktop and mobile before launch.

Theme settings

Once the theme is active, its own controls appear under Settings → Design & branding → Theme settings. Several ship with copy from the demo site, so replacing that wording is part of setup rather than an optional refinement — see the Society, Broadsheet and Manifesto guides.

Routes and collections

Some editorial layouts depend on routes and collections. The purchased package contains the exact theme-specific routing file and instructions. Back up your existing routes.yaml before uploading a replacement.

Test representative content

Preview a long article, a short article, a post without a feature image, tag and author archives, member signup and search. The live demos show the intended behaviour for comparison.

Memberships and subscriptions

Every theme uses Ghost's native membership system. Configure membership access and paid tiers in Ghost Admin; payments from your readers are handled by your own Ghost/Stripe configuration, not by Themes By Kyle.

Test free-member signup and email confirmation.
Test login and account management.
If you sell paid memberships, test monthly and yearly tiers.
Review every membership call-to-action with your own publication copy.

Customisation

Work in this order, from safest to most involved:

Ghost's own brand settings. Accent colour, fonts, logo and navigation. Society in particular takes its entire palette from Ghost's accent colour.
Theme settings. The controls documented in the guides above — layout, copy and advertising, with no code involved.
CSS through Code injection. For small presentation changes. These survive theme updates, which direct file edits do not.
Direct code edits. Allowed under the licence, but keep them in version control or documented. Uploading a theme update can overwrite modified files.

Updates

Read the changelog and note any action required.
Back up the active theme and any customised files.
Upload the new ZIP as a separate theme version.
Preview key templates with your content.
Activate only after the preview passes.

Updates released during the lifetime of the product are included without a renewal fee.

Support

Email [email protected] with the theme name, Ghost version, page URL and a screenshot or exact error message. I aim to reply within two business days.

Support covers installation, documented configuration and confirmed defects. Bespoke design changes, hosting administration and third-party integrations are separate work.