Q: What is a custom appearance or "theme"?
A: Organizers now have the ability to change the appearance of their
Meetup Group! Change the colors, fonts, add a background image, and add
a logo to your header if you like.
Q: Who can do this?
A: Only a Meetup Group's organizer can customize the appearance, not Assistant Organizers nor groups members.
Q: How do I customize my Meetup Group's appearance?
A: Click on "Group Settings" on near the top of the left-hand navigation bar. From there, click on "Appearance."
Q: What are my choices for themes?
A: A theme is a design for the Meetup Group. You have the choice to
choose a ready-made theme or customize your own. You can start with a
ready-made theme and then customize parts of it.
Q: What can I change with a custom theme?
A: Almost everything in your Meetup Group:
1. Group name header: The banner area that
stretches across the top of the page. You can change the background
color, text color, or upload a picture.
2. Page background:
The background of the entire page below the group name header. You can
change the background color, upload an image or both. You can also
choose to repeat your background image across, down, or both. You can
align it left, right, or center.
3. Boxes: Each
box on the page showing your content. You can change the background
color, the font and font color, and an "accent color" which is used in
certain small places in the boxes, like on the calendar.
4. Headlines: The titles of each box. You can change the font and font color.
5. Links & buttons: You can change the color of links and the color of buttons separately.
6. Navigation bar:
This is the bar on the left of all your Meetup Group's pages. (Note
Private groups' disabled links on their bars appear transparent to
non-members.)
Q: What can't I change with a custom theme?
A: Only a few things:
1. The Meetup header & footer of the page.
2. Rollover color and past visited color for links.
3. Some items automatically change color based on what colors you've
chosen. This includes the calendar page, horizontal lines, action box
(Join this Meetup Group!) borders, and Google Ads.
4. Some items don't change at all. This includes RSVP counts, edit buttons, the calendar icon, success messages.
Q: What are "good" colors?
A: Color choices are subjective, but here are some tips from the creative types here at Meetup HQ:
1. Choose colors suitable to what your Meetup Group is about and show your Group's personality.
2. Try to choose colors that are easy on the eyes, readable and not disorienting.
3. Make sure your colors have enough contrast between them that you can see everything and read the text clearly.
4. Choose complementary colors: colors opposite themselves on the color wheel. The basics include red and green, purple and yellow, and blue and orange.
6. Choose analogous colors: colors next to each other on the color wheel. Fore example, green and yellow and blue.
7. Start with complementary or analogous colors, and then brighten or darken the tints uniformly.
8. Warm colors "pop" and cool colors recede. For example, making your
boxes orange and your background blue really makes your boxes stand out.
9. Use a photograph for your background and then choose matching colors that are found in the photograph.
Q: How do I choose colors?
A: The Meetup color picker provides 84 built-in colors. The colors were
chosen by us to be aesthetically pleasing in lots of combinations. As
you choose a color, you can see its hex code in the box below. You can
choose to use a built-in color or enter your own custom hex codes.
Q: What are hex codes?
A: Hex codes are the 6-digit codes that web sites use to mix colors.
They are shown in hexadecimal notation, which means that the letters A
through F can be used as well as 1 through 9.
Q: How do I find hex codes?
A: If you have Photoshop or another graphics program, you can use its
color wheel and then copy the hex code. Or, use the eyedropper tool
within Photoshop to pick a color from a photograph or logo. Here are
some websites that can help (note, Meetup.com isn't affiliated with any
of these): Colorjack, Color Scheme Generator 2, Color Hunter, 4096 Color Wheel, Color Combos. Alternately, you can search for hex codes online.
Q: What is the banner?
A: The banner is the space at the top of the page that shows your
Meetup Group's name. You can choose to change the color, or upload your
own image instead.
Q: What kind of image can I upload?
A: The key is to make sure your Group name appears in the image. To this end, you can use a logo if your group has one.
Q: How do I make the banner work well?
A: Any banner image you upload will be centered in the space. The width
of the content on a Meetup page is 960 pixels, so that's a good width
for the banner. This means the color you have set for that space will
appear on the left and right if the browser window is larger than 960
pixels. You can match parts of your image to that color. Or, you can
use a transparent GIF file so that the background color shows through
behind your logo/name. You can also make your banner super-wide to
accommodate all browsers - say, 2000 pixels. But the important content
should stay in the center area of the image.
Q: How do I get a great background?
There are lots of ways. Because you don't want your background to
overpower your content, it's best to keep it somewhat subtle. You can
choose:
1. A solid color - choose from one of Meetup's defaults or enter your own hex code.
2. A pattern that you've designed in a graphics program.
3. A logo that repeats.
4. A photo.
Q: What's a good size for the background picture?
A: People have web browsers and monitors of different sizes. So what
looks lined up in yours might run off the page, or conversely show a
lot of empty space, on someone else's computer. The width of your
Meetup Group's content is 960 pixels. So if you center a background
image that's only 960 pixels, you won't really see it since it will be
behind your content boxes. You can choose to use a super large photo
for your background, but more likely you'll end up tiling the photo in
some way. For this reason, it's a good idea to select a corresponding
background color.
Q: How do I tile the background picture?
A: You have several choices. You can repeat an image across only,
repeat it down only, repeat it both across and down, or not repeat it.
Repeating it across only will make a horizontal stripe of your image
across the top of the background, and repeating it down will do the
same thing in one vertical stripe. You can also choose to align the
image left, right, or center. Play around with it to see what you like
best.
Q: Can I use any picture I want?
A: Unfortunately, no. Like any other photo you use online, finding
photos from other web sites may be subject to copyright law. See
Meetup's terms of service for more details. When in doubt, contact the
owner of a web site where you found a picture to make sure it's ok to
use it. To be really safe, use only pictures and patterns you've
created or photos you've taken yourself.
Q: If I use a background image, do I need to select a color?
A: It's a good idea to select a corresponding background color. Plus,
we use this selection to automatically change the color of some items,
like the background color of Google ads.
Q: What fonts are available?
A: You can change the font of your Meetup Group's text and headers
separately. Choose from Comic Sans, Courier, Verdana, Arial and
Georgia. Make sure when you choose a font for your text that it is
readable, especially combined with your color choices, Make sure your
members don't complain!
Q: Can I add my own fonts?
A: At this time, no. We chose fonts that are accessible to all browsers.
Q: Can I make the font larger?
A: We can't currently offer larger font sizes. This is a side effect of
how our templates are laid out to support accessibility for those w/
vision impairment (all our template sizes are based off of font sizes,
so increasing font sizes increases size of everything on page).
When you're all done, ask your members what they think!
