How to Brand Your Rise Course

Rise makes it super-simple to create inherently responsive, beautiful courses. And it has some great options for customizing the look and feel of your courses to align with your company branding guidelines. Here are some how-to’s and pro tips to help you get started.

Upload Your Logo

Using your company logo is the most straightforward way to brand your Rise content. To update the logo, start by opening the course you want to edit and click the settings link in the top right corner.

Once you’re in the settings page, you’ll notice an “Upload Logo” button. Click on this button and then browse your files to find the correct logo file. Once inserted, the logo will appear on the left-hand side of the course overview page, above your course description.

The logo will be scaled to a maximum height of 70px and the width depends on the aspect ratio; Rise will never change the aspect ratio of the logo image.

Add a Cover Photo

On the same settings page you used to upload your logo, you’ll be able to add a cover photo to your course. Click the “Add Cover Photo” button and you’ll have two options: upload your own photo from your computer, or browse the photographs and illustrations available from the 1.5+ million assets in Content Library.

The photo you select will automatically appear at the top of your course overview page …

… at the top of the sidebar …

… and on your main Rise homepage, as you can see in the image below.

Once you insert the photo, you will have a couple of additional options available to you.

You can deselect the “Show in sidebar” option if you don’t want the image to appear in the sidebar. If the image is not selected it will show a solid accent color instead (which, by default, is orange, but the color can be customized, which we’ll look at next).

You will also have the option to choose the level of text contrast. The higher the percentage you select for text contrast, the darker the image will appear and the more the white text will stand out against it. You can see a preview of the text contrast at the bottom of the settings page.

Every company has a look and feel that works best for their industry and their products or services. When you’re choosing a cover photo for your course, be sure to consider what might work best for your course content, but also your brand and any branding guidelines you might have. For instance, a legal company might use black-and-white imagery of books and offices, whereas an outdoor equipment company would probably lean toward richly colored imagery of beautiful nature scenes.

Change Font and Color

On the settings page, below the cover photo section, you’ll notice an area called “Font & Color Customization.” Click the “Customize Theme” button. This will bring you to a new page that allows you to adjust the accent color, headings font, and body font used in your course.

If your company has a specific color they like to use in their materials, you can make it the accent color for your course by clicking the “Custom” button in the “Accent Color” section.

This will open a new window where you can either select a color or enter the Hex code of the color you want to use. The preview below it shows how the color will look. If your company doesn’t have a color you need to use, consider choosing an accent color that coordinates with the imagery throughout your course.

You can also assign a heading and body font on this page, and view a preview of how the text looks with those fonts.

Rise includes a list of web-safe fonts you can choose from, but you can also use the “Manage Custom Fonts” option to import your own font styles. This helps ensure your Rise course has the look and feel that matches your organization’s brand. You can always use the “Reset Default Fonts” button to restore the default look if you change your mind.

Don’t forget to click the “Save” button in the top right-hand corner of your screen after you’ve made changes to your accent color and fonts.

Customize Sidebar, Labels, and Text

Want to create a streamlined look and feel for a Rise course that doesn’t include a course outline? This is possible in just a few clicks. On the settings page for your course, you’ll notice the “Navigation” tab, and the Sidebar option within it:

You have the flexibility to control whether the sidebar is visible in your course or not. You can even choose the “No Sidebar” option from the dropdown to completely remove the sidebar from your course. Selecting the “No Sidebar” option also removes the course outline from the course overview page.

Next to the Navigation tab, you’ll see the “Labels” tab.

Here you can also customize the button and label text in your Rise courses. You might want to change the language to be more in line with your company’s voice, your subject matter or content, or even language.

Here’s an example where the “Start Course” button has been translated to German:

… and here’s an example where the label text on a quiz has been changed from the word “Correct” to a more playful choice of words:

As you create the content for your course—including images and labels—keep in mind your company voice. Every company has a voice, or style, it uses to communicate with employees and customers. For some, it’s a serious voice; for others, it’s a fun and playful voice. It simply depends on the organization. Just like certain images work best for certain brands, certain words and tones work better for some than others. Keep this in mind when you’re developing your next course.

By using all of these tips, you can create your course quickly and easily as well as follow corporate branding guidelines. Do you have any other tips or tricks you like to use when branding your Rise courses? Let me know in the comments below!

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