See the themes

Public documentation

See the setup before you buy.

This page covers the installation and maintenance workflow shared by both themes. 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 → Newsroom Broadsheet

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

Read the Broadsheet guide →

Both guides are 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. Open the Society and Broadsheet 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

  1. Download the theme ZIP from the Gumroad receipt or library.
  2. Open Ghost Admin and go to Settings → Site → Design & branding.
  3. Open the theme area and choose to upload a theme.
  4. Select the downloaded ZIP and wait for Ghost to validate it.
  5. 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 hello@themesbykyle.com.

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 and Broadsheet 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

Both themes use 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:

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

Updates

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

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

Support

Email hello@themesbykyle.com 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.