Theme settings guide
Society, setting by setting.
Society gives you twenty controls in Ghost Admin — layout, copy and advertising, all without touching code. This page explains what each one does and where it appears, plus the handful of things people reliably look for in the wrong place.
Where the settings live
Every setting on this page is in Ghost Admin, in one place:
Settings→Design & branding→Theme settings
Ghost groups them into Site-wide, Homepage and Post — the same three groups used below, in the same order you will see on screen.
Ghost caps every theme at twenty custom settings, and Society uses all twenty. That cap is why a few things you might expect to find here — your accent colour, your fonts — are handled by Ghost's own controls instead. See Colour and type.
Society is built to look finished on a stock install with nothing touched. Treat these settings as refinements rather than a setup checklist.
First five minutes
Just activated the theme? Do these five things. Only the first two are strictly necessary.
- Replace the demo copy. Several text settings ship with wording from the demo site — the edition line, the rail note, the membership call-to-action and the footer blurb. They read well, but they are not about your publication.
- Set both navigation menus. Settings → Navigation. The primary menu becomes the top utility bar and the mobile menu; the secondary menu becomes the topic row under the masthead. Leave the secondary empty and that row disappears cleanly.
- Pick your accent colour under Design & branding — not in theme settings. One colour drives every branded surface in the theme.
- Change the edition mark from the default D to your own initial.
- Publish at least five posts. The lead package takes the four most recent and the feed starts at the fifth, so the "Latest stories" section stays hidden until you have five.
All twenty settings
Twenty is a lot to scan, so use the search box — it matches setting names, descriptions and placements as you type.
Site-wide
Applies across the whole publication.
Shows the small lettered and starred ornaments that sit either side of your publication name, in the manner of a printed masthead.
Where it appears: the masthead, on every page.
Turn it off for a plainer, more contemporary wordmark.
The single letter shown inside the masthead ornament. One character is the design intent — more will fit, but the ornament stops reading as a mark.
Where it appears: the masthead ornament, when edition marks are on.
Default: D — demo copy. Use your publication's initial.
A one-sentence statement of what your publication is and who it is for, set beside the masthead.
Where it appears: next to the masthead.
Default: Independent reporting on the people, places and ideas shaping a better world. — demo copy.
A billboard advertising slot at standard 970 × 250 proportions. Paste the HTML from your ad platform, or a linked image.
Where it appears: above the header, on every page.
Renders nothing when empty. See Advertising slots.
A short statement of editorial character, shown above the footer links.
Where it appears: the footer, on every page.
Default: Reporting with curiosity, precision and a sense of place. — demo copy.
The heading above the newsletter signup block in the footer.
Where it appears: the footer signup block, on members-enabled sites.
Default: A considered start to the day. — demo copy.
One label, used for every signup link in the theme — the sidebar, the membership panel and the footer — so they never drift out of step with each other.
Where it appears: the rail, the membership call-to-action and the footer.
Default: Subscribe. Join, Become a member and Sign up all work; keep it short, since it sets the width of a button.
Homepage
Controls the front page only. Page two onwards is a plain archive and does not use these.
How story cards are arranged. Grid sets them side by side; List stacks them with the image beside the copy — more room for headlines and excerpts, fewer stories in view.
Where it appears: the main feed and every tag and author archive.
Choose List if your headlines run long or your excerpts do real work.
Shows the dark band beneath the lead package. Unlike a news ticker this does not scroll — it is a fixed promotional slot, well suited to a podcast, a live show or a flagship series.
Where it appears: the front page, under the lead stories.
Turning this off hides the three ticker text settings' output too.
The small badge at the left of the ticker band, naming the strand.
Where it appears: the ticker band, when it is on.
Default: Society radio — demo copy.
The main line of copy in the ticker band.
Where it appears: the ticker band, when it is on.
Default: On air: The Global Briefing — demo copy.
The call-to-action at the end of the ticker band.
Where it appears: the ticker band, when it is on.
Default: Listen now — demo copy.
Shows the sidebar beside the main feed. Turn it off and the feed widens to fill the space.
Where it appears: the front page, beside the story feed.
The rail also holds the homepage ad slot — turning it off removes that placement.
The heading on the sidebar note.
Where it appears: the rail, when it is on.
Default: More time. Better reading. — demo copy.
The body copy beneath the rail heading.
Where it appears: the rail, when it is on.
Default: Our editors' most rewarding reads, selected for slower Saturdays. — demo copy.
A rectangle advertising slot at standard 300 × 250 proportions, shown once in the homepage rail.
Where it appears: the front-page rail — so it needs Show rail to be on.
Renders nothing when empty. See Advertising slots.
The heading on the membership panel — the theme's main invitation to subscribe.
Where it appears: the front page, on members-enabled sites, for readers who are not yet members.
Default: Independent journalism for a more considered life. — demo copy.
The supporting copy beneath the membership heading. This is the sentence that does the persuading — say what a member actually gets.
Where it appears: the membership panel on the front page.
Default: Unlock every story, receive our newsletters and support reporting that travels well. — demo copy.
Post
Applies to individual articles.
Opens each article with a large decorative capital letter, in the magazine tradition.
Where it appears: the first paragraph of every post.
Turn it off if your posts often open with a list, a quote or a short scene-setting line, where a drop cap sits awkwardly.
A leaderboard advertising slot at standard 728 × 90 proportions, shown once per article.
Where it appears: beneath the post's hero image.
Renders nothing when empty. See Advertising slots.
No setting matches that search. Try a shorter word, or clear the box to see all twenty.
Colour and type are Ghost's, not the theme's
This is the single most common source of confusion, so it is worth being explicit: Society has no colour setting and no font setting. It uses Ghost's own, under Settings → Design & branding, one level up from the theme settings panel.
One accent colour drives everything
Set Ghost's accent colour and it flows through every branded surface at once — the Subscribe button, the membership panel, the ticker badge, the masthead ornament, blockquote rules, featured-post flags and editor button cards.
Two further colours are worked out from it automatically, so you do not have to think about contrast:
| Derived colour | Used for | How it behaves |
|---|---|---|
| Contrast | Text sitting on the accent | Flips between black and white so the label stays legible |
| Ink | Link underlines and hairlines | Darkens or lightens until it clears the accessibility threshold |
The practical effect: a pale yellow and a deep navy both produce a readable site. Pick the colour your publication actually uses rather than the one that seems safest.
Fonts follow Ghost's font settings
Ghost's heading font changes the wordmark, headlines and card titles. Its body font changes post content, decks and excerpts. Leave both on default for Newsreader throughout, with Libre Franklin for in-article subheadings and DM Sans for labels.
All fonts are self-hosted inside the theme — no third-party requests, and nothing to disclose in a cookie banner on their account.
Dark mode is automatic
Society ships a purpose-built dark palette — a warm brown-black, not an inverted grey — and follows the reader's operating system setting. There is nothing to configure and no toggle to add.
How the homepage builds itself
Several "something is missing" questions are really questions about this structure, so it is worth reading once.
- The lead package takes your four most recent posts — one lead story plus three in the stack.
- The ticker band sits beneath it, if enabled.
- The feed begins at post five and runs twelve posts per page, with the rail alongside it.
- The membership panel appears within the page for readers who are not yet members.
With fewer than five published posts the "Latest stories" feed has nothing to show and stays hidden. This is the correct behaviour, not a fault — but it does mean a brand-new site looks emptier than the demo until the fifth post goes out.
Page two looks different, deliberately
Ghost uses one template for the front page and another for every page after it. Page two onwards is a plain archive: no lead package, no ticker, no rail. That is standard Ghost behaviour and applies to the tag and author archives too.
The topic row comes from your secondary menu
The row of topics beneath the masthead is your secondary navigation menu, set under Settings → Navigation. Leave it empty and the row disappears rather than leaving a gap.
Advertising slots
Society has three slots at standard IAB sizes. Each takes raw HTML, renders nothing when empty, and is labelled and ruled off from editorial content.
| Setting | Size | Placement |
|---|---|---|
| Top ad HTML | 970 × 250 | Above the header, every page |
| Home ad HTML | 300 × 250 | Homepage rail (needs the rail on) |
| Post ad HTML | 728 × 90 | Beneath the post hero |
Paste the tag from your ad platform, or use a linked static creative for a directly sold campaign:
<a href="https://advertiser.example/campaign" rel="sponsored" target="_blank">
<img src="https://cdn.example/ad-970x250.jpg"
width="970" height="250"
alt="Advertisement from Example">
</a>Slots hold their proportions and scale down on narrow screens. Any single view shows at most two ads — the global billboard plus one contextual placement — which is a deliberate ceiling rather than a technical limit.
Consent management, targeting and privacy compliance remain yours as the site owner. Check that your ad provider supports being embedded this way before selling a campaign against it.
Members and signup surfaces
Every membership element in Society is aware of who is reading:
- Subscribe buttons, signup links and the membership panel render only when members are enabled in Ghost.
- They are hidden from readers who have already subscribed — a paying member is never sold what they already have.
- Signed-in readers see an Account link where anonymous visitors see Log in.
Paid posts use Ghost's own paywall, styled to match the theme. Native comments appear beneath posts once enabled under Settings → Membership → Access. Search uses Ghost's built-in search and is reachable at every screen size, including inside the mobile menu.
The wording of these surfaces comes from three settings: Signup link text, CTA heading and CTA description.
The content conventions that matter
Some of what makes the demo look good is ordinary Ghost fields, filled in well.
Feature images
Supply 1600 × 1000 or larger. The homepage lead and post hero crop to 16:9; cards crop to 4:3. Add alt text and captions — they carry photo credits as well as accessibility.
Custom excerpts
Set an Excerpt in the editor sidebar and it becomes the lead story's deck and the post's standfirst. Without one, the theme falls back to the opening words of the post, which rarely reads as well.
Featured posts
Mark a post as featured with the star in the editor and it takes an accent rule and a flag in the feed.
Author portraits and bios
These complete the byline and the author pages. The layout collapses cleanly when an author has neither, so there is no penalty for leaving them out — but they are worth filling in.
Everything degrades gracefully: no feature image, no portrait, no tags, no excerpt, an empty tag archive, or a site with a single post all render properly rather than leaving reserved gaps.
Beyond the settings
Change how many posts appear per page
Society shows twelve posts per page. That number lives in the theme's package.json rather than in Ghost Admin, so changing it means editing the theme and re-uploading the ZIP. Keep a note of the change — a theme update will overwrite it.
Force light mode and disable dark mode
Dark mode follows the reader's operating system by design, and there is deliberately no setting for it. To remove it, delete the @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) block near the end of assets/css/screen.css and re-upload the theme.
Worth considering first: readers who use dark mode chose it, and Society's dark palette is purpose-built rather than an inversion.
Adjust the type or spacing scale
The whole theme is built on one type scale and one spacing scale, defined as custom properties at the top of assets/css/screen.css. Change the --t-* values and every heading, deck and caption moves together; --s-* does the same for spacing.
For small tweaks, a CSS override in Settings → Code injection → Site header survives theme updates and is the safer route.
Upgrading from Society 1.0
Making room for the layout controls in 1.1 meant consolidating some copy fields, so a few settings changed shape:
- Rail link text, CTA button text and Footer newsletter link text merged into one Signup link text.
- Edition city, Ticker description and Footer newsletter description were removed — each was either hidden on smaller screens or duplicated a neighbouring field.
If you had customised any of those, re-enter the wording in the remaining fields after upgrading.
Troubleshooting
My accent colour did nothing
Check Design & branding rather than theme settings. Society uses Ghost's own accent colour, so there is exactly one place to set it — and it is one level above the theme settings panel.
The homepage looks empty
The lead package uses your four most recent posts and the feed starts at the fifth, so the "Latest stories" section only appears once you have five or more published posts.
The topic row is missing
It comes from your secondary navigation menu, under Settings → Navigation. With no secondary menu set, the row is hidden rather than left as an empty band.
Page two looks different from the homepage
Expected. Ghost uses one template for the front page and another for the pages after it, so page two onwards is a plain archive without the lead package, ticker or rail.
My homepage ad is not showing
The 300 × 250 slot lives inside the rail, so it needs Show rail to be on. If the rail is off, use the top or post slot instead.
I cannot find the theme settings panel
Society must be the active theme, not merely uploaded. Activate it under Settings → Design & branding → Change theme, then reload Ghost Admin. Custom themes also require Ghost(Pro) Publisher or higher, or a self-hosted install.
Fonts look wrong after I edited the CSS
The theme self-hosts its fonts from assets/fonts/. If those files were moved or renamed, update the @font-face block at the top of screen.css.
Dark mode will not turn off
It follows the reader's system setting by design. See Beyond the settings for how to remove it if you are certain.
Still stuck?
Email hello@themesbykyle.com with your Ghost version, the page URL and a screenshot or the exact error. I aim to reply within two business days, and support covers installation, documented settings and confirmed defects.
For installation, updates and licensing, see the main documentation. For release notes, see the changelog.