Color themes & light/dark mode

Under Branding, the Site Template field lists two kinds of options: five color themes (this article) and five structural layouts (see Choosing a site layout, below). The color themes all share the same page structure and only change fonts, hero style, corners, and spacing — while still using your own brand colors:

• Statehouse — the classic civic look: serif headlines and a gradient hero. The traditional courthouse style, and the default.
• Civic Modern — clean and high-contrast, modeled on the U.S. Web Design System that most federal sites use.
• Courthouse Warm — friendlier stone-and-cream tones with rounded cards; a good fit for smaller rural districts.
• Editorial Bold — large display headlines and strong color blocks.
• Plainfield — a quiet, fast, minimal look with lots of whitespace.

Light & dark mode

Each of these five color themes comes in a light and a dark version. Use Default light/dark mode to choose which one your site opens in: Light, Dark, or Auto (each visitor’s own device setting decides). Whatever you pick, visitors always get a small Light/Dark toggle in the top bar to switch for themselves, and their choice is remembered on their device.

All five color themes meet accessibility color-contrast standards automatically, even with your custom brand colors, so text stays readable in both modes no matter which colors you choose.