Find your Ghost theme
Choose the theme around the work it has to carry. An image-led journal, a weekly newsletter, and a deep archive ask different things of a homepage.
A theme decides what readers meet first and how one article leads to the next. It also determines how the archive and subscription path sit around the work. Those choices still matter months after launch, when new work and old posts have to live together.
Perhaps you already have a detailed brief. Maybe all you know is that the site will hold a magazine, a personal blog, or a course. The routes below work from either starting point: ask in your own words, browse familiar publication types, study real sites, or answer a few guided questions.
If Ghost is new to you, see how the platform works before choosing a theme.
Describe what you are building. The Advisor can turn a rough brief into a shortlist of themes worth exploring.
Write as you would explain the project to another person. Mention the content, the role of images, how readers should find older work, and whether membership matters. A plain description is enough. Theme terminology can wait.
Use the response as a shortlist. Open the suggested themes, compare their demos and features, and see which decisions feel right for your publication.
If the publication type is the clearest thing you know, the collections below are a better place to begin.
Start with a familiar kind of publication. Browse Ghost themes for blogs, newsletters, magazines, journals, courses, documentation, and more.
A label such as magazine or course already says something useful about the amount of content, the navigation it needs, and the way readers are likely to move through it. These collections bring together themes built around those recurring patterns.
The boundaries are loose. A course may need the guided navigation of documentation and the membership tools of a newsletter. Open the neighboring collections when your publication sits between familiar types.
See the theme after launch. The Showcase collects real publications built with fueko themes.
Product demos make comparison easier because their content is controlled. Real sites are messier and more revealing. The Showcase lets you see whether the typography holds up with someone else’s writing. Images may change the character of a layout, while a growing archive reveals how the design handles time.
What should the theme make easier every week? Look at the publishing routine as closely as the homepage.
These needs return every time you publish. A solo writer may want a homepage that needs little curation. A magazine with several topics has to help readers move sideways through its archive. A newsletter-led site needs clear routes into membership without interrupting every article.
