How I Customized This Content Library 360 Template
Course templates are a great way to jump-start a project when you’re short on time or need inspiration. That’s one thing I love about Storyline 360—you have quick and easy access to thousands of course templates from within the app thanks to Content Library 360. And because they’re designed and built out for you, all that’s left to do is pop in your content—saving you tons of time.
But what if you find a template you love, except the colors and fonts don’t match your company’s branding? Or maybe there isn’t a template with imagery that matches your course topic? If that’s the case, don’t worry! You can customize all of the templates included in Storyline 360 in just a few minutes.
In the project below, I customized a template to align with my project’s branding and imagery in just a few clicks.
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In this article, I’ll walk you through my process for quickly and easily transforming Content Library 360 templates—and hopefully give you some inspiration for your next project along the way.
1. Insert a Content Library 360 Template
To get started, open up Content Library 360 templates from the Slides tab in Storyline 360.
Then, identify the template theme you’d like to use in your project. Keep in mind that you’ll be customizing the look of the templates, so the theme colors and fonts don’t have to perfectly match what you’re planning for your project.
For example, in my course I chose three slides from the Illuminate theme: a Welcome slide, an Instructions slide, and an Objectives slide.
2. Customize Colors and Fonts Project-Wide
Once you’re finished adding the slide templates to your project, it’s time to begin customizing. One of the biggest things you can quickly do to change the look of a template is to select new theme colors.
In the Design tab, you’ll find the Colors drop-down, which shows the theme colors associated with the template you’re using.
It’s also where you can choose from prebuilt theme color palettes or design your own. For my project, I selected a custom color theme I created specifically for this course.
The Theme Colors feature saves you tons of time because it automatically updates the colors of the slide objects and text across your entire project.
For help creating your own custom theme colors, take a look at this handy job aid: Storyline 360: Theme Colors.
Another easy way to make design changes project-wide is to use theme fonts. Theme fonts work much like Theme Colors, except for text. From the Fonts drop-down in the Design tab, you can select from prebuilt theme fonts or create custom theme fonts.
This template uses Lato, but in my example I wanted to use Open Sans instead. Rather than manually making changes on every slide, all I had to do was update the theme fonts and it updated all the fonts in my project automatically. It’s a serious time-saver!
For instructions on how to use theme fonts in your project, take a look at this article: Storyline 360: Working with Theme Fonts.
3. Customize Individual Slides as Needed
Once you’ve made any necessary course-wide updates, it’s time to focus on each individual slide. Let’s take a closer look at some of the updates I made in this example to give you an idea of what that might look like.
Welcome Slide
On the Welcome slide, I decided to swap out the background image with another one from Content Library 360 and change the circle to a rectangle for a slightly different look.
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See how much these small changes have transformed the overall look and feel of the template?
Instructions Slide
On the Instructions slide, I decided to choose a different character from Content Library 360, select a different pose, and resize the character. I also added a background image behind the character to add some situational context.
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As you can see, these simple modifications allowed me to quickly change up the look and feel of the slide.
Objectives Slide
On the Objectives slide, I deleted one of the sections of content since I only needed 3, not 4 like in the original template. So I just went ahead and deleted the extra one and adjusted the alignment of the remaining 3 sections on the slide.
I also decided to lengthen the dividing lines in between each section, replaced the section numbers with icons, and swapped out the placeholder images with ones relevant to my topic.
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See what a difference those simple changes made? If you look closely, you can still see the resemblance between my version and the original, but I’ve definitely made it my own.
More Resources
It’s as simple as that! In no time at all, you can create a custom learning experience that aligns with your branding and course topic. I hope this inspires you to create your next project using Content Library 360 templates—they’re big time-savers and supereasy to work with. If you need help or have any questions about this project, please leave a comment below.
And if you want to learn more ways to customize Content Library 360 templates, take a look at these tips: 3 Time-Saving Tips for Customizing Content Library 360 Templates.
Want to use Content Library 360 slide templates, but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free 30-day trial, and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning.
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