When you find a WordPress theme that’s perfect for your website, with a design that doesn’t suit you, most of the time you’ll need to make changes to it. But if you’re not confident enough about what to do to make it happen, you’re in luck.

In this tutorial, we’ll cover the top 5 ways to change a WordPress theme design, starting with the easiest and ending with the intermediate solutions.

Minor Design Changes With WordPress Customizer

The first place you should start when you want to change your theme design is the WordPress customizer.

Depending on the theme, you can change the color scheme, change fonts, add or delete fixed header images, website logos, or even populate custom sections with static page content.

The Default Sections Available With the Customizer

This section is theme-independent, this is where you define the site’s title and slogan, and often add a logo as well.

Colors / Color Palette

Very explicit, this is a common section where you can change the color of different parts of the theme.

Header Image

Where you can add/edit a header image and sometimes control where it is placed and how big it should be.

Static Home Page

This is where you choose what you want to use as your blog’s home page. You can view the latest articles or choose a specific page.

The Customizer is great for making quick changes to a theme, but the downside is that not all themes offer enough options in the Customizer. This brings us to our next option.

Using Plugins

One or some specific aspects of the design that you are having trouble with, and there are no options to remedy with the Customizer? It may have a plugin designed simply to fix this issue.

If your theme offers a default header image that you cannot change or if you want to use different header images on different pages or categories, there is a plugin for that too, called “Unique headers”.

The problem with plug-ins is that they can have a negative effect on performance, especially if you’re using them.

With the use of Builder Pages

This is probably the best option for you if you really like the flexibility and usability of your current theme, which allows you to create professional pages.

Using a ‘Page Builder’ simplifies creating multi-column pages, even if the theme doesn’t offer as many. They also come with different complex configurations that you can easily fill in to create complex pages.

You’ll be able to create portfolio pages, professional home pages and much more. You can even display part of your blog with these plugins.

Changing CSS with a Plugin

Advanced and lightweight modification will get you to use CSS code. CSS is a programming language that works together with HTML to produce the websites we see today.

HTML basically works like a skeleton, displaying non-layout stuff, images and most other content. CSS styles, dress everything and play a decisive role in the formatting of the site.

There is a WordPress plugin that lets you add CSS styling, but you can also use the JetPack tool.

If you have no control over HTML / CSS you can learn it in a few weeks .

The Case of Children’s Themes on WordPress

If you want to make major changes to a theme, use a child theme. That way, even if you update the theme ( or when it’s done automatically ), you won’t lose any changes or additions you’ve made.

The first step in working with children’s themes should be to create a test site or local development environment. The WordPress Codex gives you enough information above. Here are our 8 Tips You’ll Find the Right WordPress Theme.