How course design styles work
A design style decides how a course looks beyond its colour: the shade of the page, how numbered steps are drawn, how round the corners are, and whether decoration is used at all. Every Learnient course is built in one of six, and you can change a course’s style at any time from Design in its settings. Your brand colour and brand fonts are used whichever you choose — the style decides how they are arranged, not what they are.
The six design styles
Section titled “The six design styles”| Style | What it looks like |
|---|---|
| Brand | Your brand colour on every surface, numerals in filled circles, generous rounded corners and a white page |
| Editorial | A warm second colour and a paper-toned page. Numerals set as 01, tighter corners, no decorative patterns |
| Bold | The strongest second colour of the six, circled numerals and generous corners on a white page |
| Workbook | Light tints and a paper-toned page, numerals set as 01 and softly rounded corners. Quiet and easy to read |
| Field | A muted second colour on a white page, circled numerals and medium corners |
| Technical | A cool grey page and restrained colour. Numerals set as 01 and the tightest corners of the six |
See examples in the Design section draws each one in your own brand colour, so you can compare them as your learners would see them rather than as swatches.
What a design style actually changes
Section titled “What a design style actually changes”Four things, and they are the same four whichever style you move between.
- The page colour — white, warm paper, or cool grey
- Numerals — how a numbered step or a process flow draws its number: inside a filled circle, or as a large bare
01 - Corners — tight, soft or round, applied consistently across cards, callouts and images
- Decoration — whether background patterns are used behind panels, and which ones
It also changes the family of tints and second colours derived from your brand colour, which is why two styles on one brand colour do not look alike.
Fonts always follow your brand
Section titled “Fonts always follow your brand”No design style sets a typeface. Headings, body text and page names come from your account branding, or from the course’s own fonts where you have set them. Changing style changes the arrangement, never the type.
Changing the style of a course that already exists
Section titled “Changing the style of a course that already exists”Choose a different style in Design and save. The course is restyled in place: colours, numerals, corners and the page all move to the new style, and page layouts stay as they are. Nothing is regenerated and no wording changes.
A version is recorded before the change, so Undo in version history puts the course back exactly as it was.
Note: colours you set by hand on individual headings or callouts are replaced along with the rest. The version saved before the change is how you get them back.
Auto, and what the planner picks
Section titled “Auto, and what the planner picks”Left on Auto, a course generated by AI has its style chosen from the subject and the audience, avoiding the one your last two courses used — so a library built on Auto does not come out looking uniform.
Auto applies at generation only. A course that already exists always holds one of the six, and a course you built by hand holds none until you choose one.
Common questions
Section titled “Common questions”Which design style should I choose?
Section titled “Which design style should I choose?”Pick for the material rather than the brand. Workbook and Technical suit dense, reference-heavy content people read slowly. Bold and Field suit short, visual courses. Editorial suits narrative material with one strong image per module. Brand is the safe choice when a course should look like everything else you publish.
Does changing the style change the words or the images?
Section titled “Does changing the style change the words or the images?”No. Only colour, page shade, numerals, corners and decoration change. The pages, their order and their content are untouched.
Why does the same style look different on two courses?
Section titled “Why does the same style look different on two courses?”Every style is drawn from your brand colour, and the tints and second colours it derives vary with the course. Two courses in Editorial share a page shade and a numeral style, not an identical palette.
Can I set a design style on a SCORM or external course?
Section titled “Can I set a design style on a SCORM or external course?”No. Design applies to courses built in Learnient. SCORM, xAPI, external and in-person courses have no designed content to restyle, so the section does not appear on them.