As teachers, we want our students to be engaged. We work to make content interesting and organized. And depending on your style, you may or may not spend the time to make your content visually appealing for students. After all, there’s not enough time in the day, right? But there are a few simple things you can do to brighten up and personalize your content by creating a class theme. And with the right approach, you can reuse this theme throughout the entire year.
Today, I am going to show you how to create a custom theme for Google Classroom. Classroom has some nice themes, but sometimes you want something original, something that is meaningful to you and your students. Your Classroom theme can become a hook where the engagement starts. But it might be a little tricky figuring this all out on your own, so I’m here to guide you, step-by-step. And what’s awesome is that we will be using all free, simple to use tools. You do NOT need a graphic design background for this, promise.
You might be wondering what I mean by Classroom “theme.” The theme is simply the header image for your class. It appears on the Stream page.
You can always select one of the themes Google has provided by clicking “Select theme.” We’re looking at creating a unique theme today, so we’re going to focus on uploading a photo instead. But first, we have to create this photo. And today, we are going to use one of my absolute favorite tools (and totally underrated, in my opinion): Google Drawings.
STEP 1: Create a New Drawing
Head on over to a new Google Drawing by following these steps:
- Go to Google Drive
- Click New
- Hover over More
- Click Google Drawings
- Title your Drawing
STEP 2: Customize your Drawing
You want your image to be the size of the Google Classroom banner. The nice thing about Google Drawings is that you can easily change the size to whatever dimensions you’d like by following these steps:
- Click File
- Scroll down to Page Setup
- Change the dimensions to pixels
- A Google Classroom banner is 1,000 x 250 pixels – here is a template you can use with the correct dimensions already set. If you’re interested in measuring spaces online, check out the PageRulr Chrome Extension.
Once your Drawing size is set, the world is your canvas. You can change the background color, insert text boxes, shapes, images, and so on. You can learn more about what’s possible in Google Drawings here. If you have a class logo, this would be a great place to display it. Something I loved to do as a teacher was to have the students create their own, personalized logo using Google Drawing. These logos could be used as safe profile pictures (as long as they didn’t use their picture or location) for their online accounts. One idea for a Google Classroom custom theme is to have all of the student logos on the class banner, sort of as a mosaic. Seeing their own logos displayed together in the Classroom banner can instantly give the students a feeling of ownership and unity.
Step 3: Save your Drawing
Once you have your Drawing complete, you’ll want to download it as an image file. In order to do this, you’ll follow these steps:
- Click File
- Hover over Download
- Select jpeg or png
Step 4: Add your Drawing to Google Classroom
Then you’ll head over to Classroom to upload your image – be sure you’re on your Stream page. To upload the personalized image to Classroom, you’ll follow these steps:
- In the bottom-right corner of the banner, click Upload Photo
- Find the photo on your device (in Downloads)
- Rearrange, center, crop, or expand the image so it looks the way you’d like
- Click insert
And viola! You have a personalized custom theme in Google Classroom. It may seem small, but the engagement and ownership this banner can create will go a long way with your students. Something else that’s pretty cool is that you can reuse this banner in other Google tools. It’ll fit great as a page header in Google Sites and Forms, or as an image in Slides and Drawings (or any other tool, for that matter). When used across multiple online settings, you’re now creating familiarity for your students, in addition to the ownership and engagement. All with one personalized image.
So there you have it – four steps that will help you create a custom theme for your class. What other ideas do you have that would help others create engaging custom themes for their class? Please share below!
More of a visual person? Click here to watch our step-by-step video on how to create a custom theme in Google Classroom.
As Director of Education Partnerships at EdTechTeam, Christina brings a passion for rethinking education to ensure experiences are learner-centered, with a focus on developing the capacity of others to lead and implement transformational work. Christina has worked in various roles in elementary, middle, and high school environments, as Associate Director of the Institute for Personalized Learning, and as a Manager of Partnerships at Discovery Education. She uses her experience as a classroom teacher, instructional coach, principal, and professional development specialist to understand the challenges districts face, and partners with them to create a design that works toward the district’s vision and goals. From Design Thinking to STEM to apprenticeship experiences, Christina is always looking for ways to further empower educators and engage learners in real-life experiences that impact their future.
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Todd Hartwig says
Is there a way to lighten the final banner displayed in Classroom. It is very bright and vibrant in Google Drawings, but the conversion on Classroom makes it very difficult to see the brighter objects
Adrienne Stanford says
Thank you for this. When I followed the steps and selected the file to use as my theme, it came out darkened. It looks as if there is a layer of dark grey over the whole thing. Have you heard of that happening? Is there a fix?
Kate says
Great instructions. How do you replace the old banner instead of overlaying them?
Mike says
Is there a way to post the new picture without Google Classroom making it darker? The white background is grey, not clear.
Debbie Farrington says
Why does mine come out with gray color? It doesn’t matter if I put a colored box behind it, it’s gray.
Thank you,
Deb
Dena says
Do you find it darkens the photo when you add your own header? Every time I add my own one the photo appears faded and darker.
J. V. says
Hi Christina,
I had a question about selecting a theme in Google Classroom. I added a photo from my own computer to the banner in my classroom. When I did this the colour of the text, headings, icons etc. changed to all black. I find this hard on the eyes so I went in and selected a theme so that some of the text would have colour again. When I did this it erased by photo and put the theme picture in the banner. I then went and uploaded the photo again thinking that the colour of the text would stay as is, but it all reverted to black again. How can I get the colour of the text to stay the same as the selected theme but still upload a personal photo to the banner?
Jennifer says
Great video and info but noticed that the image is really dark, is there anyway to make it look brigher?
Rebecca Aaronson says
Why is is completely grayed out when it looks fine in google drawings? Nothing I upload to Google Classroom looks good. It looks like a gray filter has been superimposed on the image. Only their preset ones come out looking any good at all. What am I doing wrong?
Kellu says
Is there a way to make the name of the page smaller or move it on the page??
sam says
This is awesome! thank you! Wondering why my image looks darker when I uploaded it as the banner? Also, does it default to a green theme once you upload a photo. I prefer my blue icons… any idea?
Madeline says
Oh my God…I shed some inner tears because your instructions finally helped me!
Thank you!!!
Connie says
THANKS! The steps were perfect for what I needed. : )
Michelle Keon says
Thanks so much for this! It was very helpful. When I put the image…or any image in, it goes darker. Do you know a way to prevent this?
meir shkedi says
hi
Carol Neves says
I think it’s great that we can create our own headers and use that creativity to engage our students, however, when I download the image as a png. and then upload to the header for my Google Classroom it looks dingy and grayed out. I think this needs to be fixed, otherwise, what’s the point? You’re working with teachers, after all, and we are (for the most part) perfectionists. Who do we need to talk to about this? I’ve sent feedback and visited the Help Community. Thanks for any help you can provide.
Kelly says
When I uploaded the JPEG I found that Google Classroom added a “shade” layer over the top of the banner so the pictures and colour are hard to see. How do I fix that?
Carol says
Why do my pictures look so dark? Is there a way to brighten them?
Thanks! 🙂
Lindsey says
I’m using your template and I made sure the pixels are 1000×250, but it doesn’t fit into the box of my banner. My image is cut off. I wish I could send a screen shot.
anne says
Hi, my header becomes gray when I uploaded my banner. Is there a fix to this? Thanks!
Megan Tolbert says
Is there a way to predetermine what color appears as a result of your theme? It seems that anytime I change my header I end up with a color theme for my topics/etc that I don’t like. I’ve tried making the color I want (for my topics and such) a dominate color on the header, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Thanks!
Lee L Libby says
This doesn’t work because classroom now greys out pics on the banner.
Cathy Frazier says
I inserted a photo of my actual classroom but I DO NOT LIKE that Google Classroom automatically darkens the theme so the silly white print shows up. My photo looks awful! I lightened it up as much as I could without losing all quality before inserting it but it still looks terrible. I am so disappointed. Please let me make the choice of darkening the photo or changing the color of the print if need be, don’t make it impossible for me to use a photo. If there is a way I can fix this, please let me know, but I Googled the topic and, although I found many people who, like me, do not want the automatic darkening, I could not find anything I could do about it. Thank you.
Cindy Modrich says
I followed your steps and it worked perfectly – except that the image is not the right color. It has a grey mask over it. How do I change that?
Tina Kritikos says
When I upload my image to google classroom, it comes out dark and shaded. Can you tell me how to fix it?
Thanks
Lisa Haislip says
Hello,
The tutorial on creating custom GC headers in Google Draw was very helpful and easy to follow. The problem I’m having is that when I try to insert the custom header, it is grayed-out. I looked into it and, apparently, Google designed it this way on purpose and has no immediate plans of changing it, resulting in washed-out images. Additionally, the pre-determined info Google has programmed into the header overwrites my custom header. Is there a fix for this, or are teachers stuck using the boring pre-made headers Google offers?
Thanks very much!
kendra sulfaro says
I have followed all of the steps above and uploaded my custom image but the background of the image is grey and my bitmoji is somewhat transparent. The header is dark even though the background color I chose was a light blue.
Cali Teacher says
This is lovely. However, why does Google then dim the hue of the colors of the artwork? Nothing looks right when you make your own.
Carter Jones says
Pretty crummy how Classroom automatically dims any custom photos uploaded in this fashion. An official response explained it was so students with visual accessibility needs could still see the text, but I find it hard to believe that instructors using custom images in this fashion would ignore those needs.
Posting this comment in hopes that enough people feel the same way and Google responds to the issue.
A. Frapanic says
I absolutely agree!
Megan says
Did you ever hear back about this??
Frederic Blais-Belanger says
I do feel the same way. I am an art teacher and for the first project this year, I asked my students to draw a header representing their vision of Arts and multimedia. One of the criteria was to think about the space where the text would appear; to think about the colors and shadings they are using in order to keep the text readable.
All of my students worked with nice colors and put time and energy through that project, and now the result is being dimmed down by Google… it’s sad, really.
Amber says
But how do I keep the color coding for secondary students (and teachers) with multiple classes? Whenever I upload my own photo, it changes the class icon to black.
Natalie Sorenson says
The auto dimming is the precise reason I came to this page, looking for a “turn off auto dimming” option. I’m sad to see it doesn’t yet exist.
Iryna says
Lots of thanks to the author, I tried and it turned round really nice. On the other hand, I absolutely agree with Carter Jones, It’s disgusting to see the custom theme shadowed. This shadowing makes the picture look awful!
Beatriz hernandez says
THANK YOU THIS IS AN AMAZING PAGE, LOVED IT.. AND I CREATE MY BANNER…
BUT THE ONLY THING IS THE BANNER LOOKS VERY DARK NO BRIGHT COLORS LIKE THE ONES THAT ARE READY TO USE IN GOOGLE CLASSROOM
SO I JUST WOULD LIKE TO KNOW HOW TO CHANGE THAT. THANK YOU
sonu bairwa says
How to Create a Custom Theme in Google Classroom
amazing answer.thanks
my question: what is url ?
Ramon Sanromà Aragonés says
Thanks a lot. Clear, short, to the point.
Very useful.
Jenn says
Thank you so much for sharing this, your directions were easy to follow. I agree with the other comment about Google dimming the picture. I was just going to google how to fix that!!