SurveyMonkey

In this article

Using Themes to Style Surveys

SurveyMonkey

Using Themes to Style Surveys

Applying a Theme
Types of Themes in the Theme Library
Creating Your Own Themes
Customizing your Themes
Previewing Your Theme
Classic Themes
Accessible Surveys

You can change the appearance of your survey by changing the colors or fonts, applying a theme, or customizing options like adding a logo or removing the footer.

Applying a Theme

To apply a theme to your survey:

Go to the Design Survey tab in any survey.
Select Style.
Select the Themes tab.
Select any theme to apply it to your survey.

As you build your survey, you can always use the rich text editor to make formatting changes to specific text to override the theme settings.

Theme colors apply to Email Invitations! When you use the HTML Template with an email invitation, the header and Begin Survey button match the Survey Title Background color of your theme.

Types of Themes in the Theme Library

You can choose from themes in a few categories:

Theme Type	Description
Standard Themes	Standard themes are basic, pre-designed themes anyone can apply to your survey to change the overall the look and feel. You may need a paid plan to customize it further.
My Themes	These are Standard Themes you customized or generated. When you create a custom theme, it's saved in My Themes so you can use it again in the future on any of your other surveys.
Premium Themes	Premium themes are pre-designed themes that use advanced customization features.
Team Themes	Team themes are themes that have been customized and saved to your team's Library. Primary Admins and Admins can add themes to the Library to share them with every member of their team. If your team has added a CSS theme, you’ll find it here.

Creating Your Own Themes

There are a few ways to build your own theme:

Generate a theme from an image: Use our theme generator to build a custom theme based on an image, like your company’s logo.
Create a custom theme: Manually create your own custom theme.

Anyone can create a custom theme and preview it on a survey. Depending on your plan and the features you use, you may be prompted to upgrade your plan or remove the paid features before you can send your survey.

Generating a Theme from an Image

Beta Feature: Generating a theme using an image is only available to some customers on desktop devices.

Generate a theme to quickly customize your survey theme to match your brand’s style. All you need to do is upload an image, like your company logo, and we'll use machine learning to pull colors from the image to generate a theme.

File requirements: Upload a PNG, JPG, or GIF. File size can be 2 MB or less.

To generate a theme:

Go to the Design Survey tab of your survey.
In the Style menu, select Generate theme.
If your survey already has a logo, your theme is generated based on that image.
If you haven’t uploaded a logo yet, continue with the instructions below:
- Select Upload image.
- Choose whether to Use image as my logo.
- Select Generate theme. SurveyMonkey generates and saves your theme.
Choose from the suggested font, color, and layout options to customize your theme. If you want to add a color, click + under Select theme color. You can use more detailed customization tools later.
(Optional) Use the thumbs up and down buttons to tell us whether the generated theme works well for you.
Select Done.

To find your generated theme, go to the My Themes section of the Themes tab.

Theme generation isn't available if your survey uses a classic theme. Create a copy of your survey to use this feature.
For Teams and Enterprise plans, this feature may not be available if an admin has set a default logo in your library.

Manually Creating a Custom Theme

Custom Themes

Paid feature

To create a custom theme:

Go to the Design Survey section in any survey.
In the left sidebar, click Style.
Select the Themes tab.
Under My themes, select Create custom theme. Your theme is saved in the Style menu under My themes.
In the Settings tab, customize your theme.

Customizing your Themes

To edit custom and generated themes:

Open the Style menu.
Go to the Themes tab.
Scroll to My themes.
Find your theme, then select the three dots menu.
Select Edit.

Theme Settings

These are the sections you'll find in the Settings tab as you're customizing your theme. Logo and footer settings aren't carried over when you apply your custom theme to a different survey.

Nickname
Logo
Footer
Fonts
Layout
Background Image
You can upload your own background image or select one from thousands in our gallery. How your background image displays and what size your image should be depends on the type of device and screen size. We recommend uploading your background image, then previewing your survey to see what it will look like on multiple device types.

To change the background image:
1. Click Replace.
2. Choose From Computer or From Image Gallery.
3. Click Done.
Backgrounds on Mobile Devices
How background images display on mobile or tablet devices depends on which layout you choose:
- Full background surveys don't display the image. Instead, the survey background color will show.
- Partial background surveys will display the image by shrinking it to fit the device. Images larger than 600px may be cut off.
TIP! When you select a background image, it's automatically used as your Thumbnail Image. You can further customize your Thumbnail Image & Text in the collector options.

Colors

You can change the color of the elements listed in the table below by using the color picker, or entering your own hex codes.

Element	Description
Title Text	The text color of your survey title. Quiz score text takes on the Title text color selection, so choose contrasting Title text and Survey background colors.
Question Text	The text color of your survey questions.
Answer Choice Text	The text color of a question's answer options.
Accents	Accents are things like buttons, progress bars, and selected checkboxes.
Accent Text	The text color for accents like buttons, progress bars, and selected checkboxes. This color will always appear on top of the Accents color, so make sure there’s enough contrast so it’s easy to read.
Survey Background	The background color that appears behind the questions in your survey. If you’re using a background image, this color is hidden.
Secondary Background	If you’re using a background image, this color overlays on top of the background image. You can control the Overlay Opacity in the Background settings to make the text in your survey easier to read.If you’re using a Split Background layout, this is the background color of the Third, Half, or Banner part of the layout. The Survey Background color will only show if you haven't added a Background Image.

Previewing Your Theme

As you customize your theme, you can view your changes on the right side of the page. However, to see the background image, you need to preview your survey.

Editing Details and Limitations

There are a few things to keep in mind when editing your themes:

Fonts
Font
You can choose from several popular fonts for your survey. Choosing a font from the Font menu applies it to every text element in your survey.

You can override the main font for the Survey Title or Page Title by selecting a different font in those specific sections.
Font Size & Style
For each of the following text elements in your survey, you can edit either the text size, style (bold, italic, or underline), or both—depending on the element.
Element Text Size Style
Survey Title ✅ ✅
Page Title ✅ ✅
Page Description ❌ ✅
Progress Bar ✅ ❌
Question Text ✅ ✅
Answer Text ✅ ✅
Exit Link ✅ ✅
Error Text ✅ ✅

Colors

You can change the color of the elements listed in the table below by using the color picker, or entering your own hex codes.

A survey template with 17 color pickers of elements that can be changed.

Number	Element
1	Survey Logo Background
2	Survey Title
3	Survey Title Background
4	Survey Background
5	Page Title
6	Page Title Background
7	Page Background
8	Progress Bar Text
9	Progress Bar Indicator
10	Progress Bar Border
11	Progress Bar Background
12	Page Description
13	Error Text
14	Required Asterisk
15	Question Text
16	Answer Text
17	Answer Text Highlight

The Survey Background color will only show if you haven't added a Background Image.

Button Colors

The background and font colors of the Next button will always match the Survey Title Background and Survey Title settings, which you can edit in the Colors section of your theme. If these colors are the same, the buttons will default to grey with black text.

However, you can't change the button color if you use the Sea Foam or Autumn themes. See the Editing Limitations sections below for more information.

Logo

Editing Limitations

Depending on the theme you're using, there may be some elements that can't be edited.

Theme	Editing Limitations
Autumn	The theme is full width, so you can't add a Background Color or Background Image.You can't edit the shape or color of the Next and Previous buttons.You can't change the height of the Survey Title Background.You can't edit or remove the circles around the question numbers.
Boardwalk	You can't remove the drop shadow around the survey.
Charcoal	You can't remove the small horizontal line under the Survey Title.Editing options are limited for Matrix/Rating Scale or Matrix of Dropdown questions.You can't update the Font Type of Answer Text.
City Lights	You can't change or remove the header background image.You can't change the transparency of the Survey Title Background.Editing options are limited for Matrix/Rating Scale or Matrix of Dropdown questions.You can't update the Font Type of Answer Text.
Jungle	The theme is full width, so you can't add a Background Color or Background Image.
Midnight	Editing options are limited for Matrix/Rating Scale or Matrix of Dropdown questions.
Moss	You can't change the rounded corners of the survey.Editing options are limited for Matrix/Rating Scale or Matrix of Dropdown questions.
Ocean	Editing options are limited for Matrix/Rating Scale or Matrix of Dropdown questions.
Sea Foam	The theme is full width, so you can't add a Background Color or Background Image.You can't edit the shape or color of the Next and Previous buttons.You can't change the height of the Survey Title Background.You can't change the color of the question numbers.
Sky	You can't change the rounded corners of the survey
Spring	Editing options are limited for Matrix/Rating Scale or Matrix of Dropdown questions.

Adding CSS Themes

Enterprise Admins have the option to add a CSS theme to completely customize survey fonts, colors, and branding. Keep in mind, CSS isn’t the same as JavaScript and allows styling customization, but not logic changes. To add a CSS theme, see Managing Brand Assets in the Library.

Editing a Custom or CSS Theme

Changes made to a custom or CSS theme affect any surveys with that theme applied.

If you need to edit an existing custom theme that’s already being used on other surveys, select the three dots next to the theme and choose Duplicate. This ensures you don’t change your existing surveys.

If you share a survey with a custom theme, only the survey owner will be able to make edits.

Classic Themes

The following themes are considered classic themes: Jungle, Sky, Ocean, Sea Foam, Midnight, Spring, Autumn, Charcoal, Moss, Aqua, City Lights, Boardwalk, and Seashell.

To use a classic theme on a new survey, you can make a copy of an existing survey with the classic theme applied and the styling will carry over. It isn’t possible to use a classic theme on a survey created any other way.

Incompatible Features

Some features aren’t supported when using a Classic theme.

If you want to add incompatible features, like the Best Worst Scale, Name, Email Address, Phone, Address questions, confirmation emails for web link surveys, or MaxDiff questions, you need to update your theme to any Standard or Premium theme.

To create a copy of your survey with a compatible theme to utilize all features:

Add a new Best Worst Scale, Name, Email Address, Phone, or Address question to your survey that uses a Classic theme.
Click Copy survey. This keeps the rest of your survey design intact and creates an exact copy but with a compatible theme. You’re able to change your theme to any other Standard or Premium theme after copying.

Accessible Surveys

You can use SurveyMonkey to create surveys that are accessible to people using screen readers. Learn more: Creating Accessible Surveys

Scoring Your Survey

Measure Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) with SurveyMonkey

Accepting Payments with PayPal

Element	Text Size	Style
Survey Title	✅	✅
Page Title	✅	✅
Page Description	❌	✅
Progress Bar	✅	❌
Question Text	✅	✅
Answer Text	✅	✅
Exit Link	✅	✅
Error Text	✅	✅

SurveyMonkey

Using Themes to Style Surveys

Applying a Theme

Types of Themes in the Theme Library

Creating Your Own Themes

Generating a Theme from an Image

Manually Creating a Custom Theme

Customizing your Themes

Theme Settings

Previewing Your Theme

Editing Details and Limitations

Adding CSS Themes

Editing a Custom or CSS Theme

Classic Themes

Incompatible Features

Accessible Surveys

Related Articles