Rise 360 is the perfect authoring app for quickly creating beautiful, inherently responsive, and engaging courses. And it just got even better, thanks to Rise 360 themes. You can now choose from a variety of gorgeous new looks created by award-winning designers to give your existing Rise 360 projects a brand-new look and feel if you’d like, and make your new Rise 360 projects feel more custom. 

With options for cover pages, navigation, lesson headers, colors, fonts, buttons, and more, Rise 360 themes give you loads of creative possibilities for making a course feel unique. You can customize courses for your topic, help learners focus on content by controlling the navigation experience, reinforce your company’s brand identity, and so much more. 

To give you a peek at some of the many ways you can use Rise 360 themes to transform your projects, I’m sharing three ideas you can steal for your Rise 360 projects—but there are almost infinite possibilities!

1. Quickly customize Rise 360 course templates 

I love saving myself some time by using the real-content templates included in Rise 360. Since they’re ready-to-go courses, most of the time I use them as is. But with Rise 360 themes it’s easy to give real-content templates a whole new look and feel in just a few clicks. 

                            Before

                            After

Course view before new Rise 360 themes update. Course view after new Rise 360 themes update.

                         

 Before

                         

 After

Course view before new Rise 360 themes update. Course view after new Rise 360 themes update.

 

I think this Sexual Harassment Prevention Training template already sets the right tone, thanks to its course cover photo, which hints at the gravity of this weighty workplace topic.

But with Rise 360 themes, I was able to easily customize the appearance of this template to give it my own, sleeker look while still aligning with the seriousness of the subject matter. 

I transformed the course cover page with a split right image layout using the Rise theme, added a dark gray accent color to keep things grounded and neutral, and then selected a fresh font—Be Vietnam—to give it a modern edge. 

 

And by choosing smaller lesson headers with a background color to match the course accent color, I gave the lessons a uniform appearance that pushes the content front and center.

 

I love how these small but mighty changes make this template feel more custom—and it only took a few tweaks to make it my own. 

2. Focus learners’ attention with compact navigation 

When it comes to sharing critical information, it’s helpful to minimize distractions so learners can focus entirely on the content. This Emergency Response Plan course shares crucial details with employees about preparing for and responding to life-threatening workplace events.

                            Before

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Course navigation view before new course themes. Course navigation view after new course themes.

                           

Before

                           

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Course navigation view before new course themes. Course navigation view after course themes update.

 

The course does an excellent job of parsing information into easy-to-understand, bite-sized pieces with the accordion block, so learners aren’t overwhelmed with too much content.

But I wanted to focus learners’ attention on this critical content even more. To do that, I selected a split right image layout using the Apex theme for the cover page. To further enhance the course’s appearance, I also switched things up to a bold and easy-to-read font—Poppins.

 

Within the course, I wanted to make sure that learners weren’t distracted by too many elements on the screen, so I chose the overlay navigation menu that learners can view only when needed. I also went with smaller headers and hid the lesson count labels.

 

Once again, little changes like these can add up to a lot more visual space within each lesson. This means learners can focus their attention on the most important elements of the course.

3. Make your courses look more on-brand

Most companies have style or brand guidelines—the consistent design choices they use to reflect their unique persona. In many organizations, the style guide also applies to internal content, including e-learning courses.

And in this Style Guide course, learners are introduced to the essential design elements they should use when creating content to represent the organization.

                            Before

                            After

Rise 360 course using the default cover page layout style Rise 360 course showing Horizon theme

                           

Before

                           

After

Rise 360 course using the default navigation and lesson header styles Rise 360 course using custom navigation and lesson header styles

 

Because there are so many theme customization options available in Rise 360, you can design a course that fits right in—no matter how specific your branding guidelines.  

To transform the course cover and bring this style guide to life, I chose a centered image layout using the Horizon theme, a green accent color, and an on-brand font pairing—Oswald & DM Sans.

 

I wanted to further reflect the brand guidelines once learners dive into each lesson, so I added a branded sidebar navigation menu, floating navigation buttons with an accent tint, and designed lesson headers using an image reflective of the organization.

 

Thanks to these choices, I’m not just telling learners how to properly reflect the organization’s unique style in their content, I’m also showing them. 

Wrap-Up

Hopefully, these examples made you as excited about Rise 360 themes as I am! Being able to customize templates to match course topics, improve the learner experience, and reinforce brand identity are just a few of the many ways Rise 360 themes can help you transform your Rise 360 projects—but there are tons more options to explore. How do you see yourself using Rise 360 themes in your organization? Share your ideas in a comment below. 

To learn more about customizing your course’s design, check out these articles:

Want to try out Rise 360 themes, 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. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.

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