Brand Centre
Managing themes and the default
Run multiple themes, decide which one is the company default, and understand what happens to existing playbooks when the default changes.
A small company will often need just one theme — the brand. Anyone running co-branded engagements, partner work, or sub-brands will end up with several. This page covers the multi-theme story: how Brand Centre handles more than one theme, how the default works, and the rules around switching it.
One default per company
Brand Centre allows one — and only one — theme to carry the default flag. This is the theme that the priority chain falls back to when no more-specific override has been set (see Theme inheritance).
The default is set in the Theme Editor with the Set as default theme checkbox. Switching the default works as you'd expect:
- Open the theme you want to make the new default.
- Tick Set as default theme.
- Save.
The previously-default theme is automatically un-defaulted at the same time. There's no two-step "demote the old one first" dance.
What changes — and what doesn't — when the default changes
This is the rule that catches people out:
Existing playbooks, sessions, and templates hold the theme they were created with. Changing the company default does not retroactively re-theme them. Only new public surfaces created after the change pick up the new default.
This is by design — a brand refresh shouldn't silently change every shared link your team has ever sent out. If you do want existing instances to adopt the new brand, you need to update them explicitly (or accept that they'll keep rendering in their original theme).
In practice this means:
| Scenario | What happens when the default changes |
|---|---|
| A playbook running today, instantiated last week from a template with no theme override | Keeps its current theme (whatever was the default at the time it was instantiated). |
| A brand-new playbook instantiated tomorrow from a template with no theme override | Picks up the new default. |
| A session that explicitly overrides its theme | Unaffected — the override wins regardless of what the default is. |
| A public template page in the Marketplace | Picks up whatever theme resolves through the priority chain at render time, so will reflect a new default unless an override exists. |
Editing and deleting themes
Themes can be edited, deleted, or marked as default at any time from the theme list:
- Editing an existing theme updates it everywhere it's referenced. A live session using the theme will see the change on next render.
- Deleting a theme removes it from pickers immediately; existing references that pointed to it fall through to the next level in the priority chain.
- Marking as default swaps the default flag, with the rules above.
Deleting the default theme
A specific edge case worth being deliberate about:
If you delete the company default without picking a new one, surfaces fall back to an internal Gleo default until a new default is chosen. This is unlikely to look the way you want — the safe pattern is to set the new default first, then delete the old one.
Walkthrough — switching the default
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1
Open the theme list
Brand Centre → theme list. The current default has a default badge.
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2
Open the new default in the editor
Click the row for the theme you want to make the company default. The editor loads it.
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3
Tick Set as default theme
Confirm the change. Save. The badge moves to the new default in the list; the old default is silently un-defaulted.
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4
Verify with a brand-new public surface
Instantiate a new playbook (or open a public template page that doesn't carry an override). The new default should render. Existing instances will continue to use their original theme.
When you'd run multiple themes
A few patterns we see in real usage:
- A primary brand and a customer-co-branded variant. Default is the consultancy's own brand. A client-co-branded engagement uses an override at the playbook level.
- Sub-brands. Different business units within the same company want their own colour and logo. Each sub-brand is a theme; the company default is the parent brand; the sub-brand is selected at the template or playbook level.
- Partner-published templates. Templates published to the Marketplace by a partner ship with their own theme baked into the template itself.
For each case, the priority chain is the lever — see Theme inheritance for the full picture.
Tips & pitfalls
Don't expect retroactive re-theming. Changing the default is forward-looking only. If a brand refresh needs to land across a back catalogue of live sessions or shared template pages, plan the touch-up explicitly.
Set the new default before deleting the old one. Avoids the brief window where the internal Gleo fallback would render.
Name themes for who they're for, not what colours they use. "Acme — Customer-facing" ages better than "Blue + grey." When you have five themes, the names are how you find the right one.