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How to Change Colors in the Twenty Fourteen WordPress Theme

11 threads Sep 7, 2025 Theme → Twenty fourteen

Content

One of the most common questions from users of the Twenty Fourteen theme is how to customize its default color scheme. The theme's prominent black header, sidebar, and footer are distinctive, but they don't always fit every website's branding. This guide will walk you through the most effective methods for changing these colors, from simple plugins to custom CSS.

Why You Need to Customize Colors Carefully

The Twenty Fourteen theme uses specific CSS classes and IDs to control its color scheme. Simply editing the theme's core files is strongly discouraged, as any changes will be overwritten the next time the theme is updated. The recommended approach is to use a dedicated plugin or a child theme, which protects your modifications.

Method 1: Using a Plugin (The Easiest Way)

For users who are not comfortable editing code, the simplest solution is to use a plugin. Based on community feedback, a plugin called "Fourteen Colors" is highly effective. Once installed and activated, it adds new color options to the standard WordPress Customizer (Appearance -> Customize), allowing you to change colors with a simple point-and-click interface without writing any code.

Method 2: Using Custom CSS (The Most Flexible Way)

For more control, adding Custom CSS is the best approach. You can add this code using a child theme's style.css file or a plugin that allows for custom CSS edits. Here are the most common selectors you will need to change the primary black elements:

/* Changes the top header bar */
.site-header {
    background-color: #yourcolorhere;
}

/* Changes the left sidebar */
#secondary {
    background-color: #yourcolorhere;
}

/* Changes the footer widget area background */
.footer-widgets {
    background-color: #yourcolorhere;
}

/* Changes the thin separator line between posts */
@media screen and (min-width: 401px) {
    .list-view .site-content .hentry {
        border-top: 4px solid #yourcolorhere; /* Adjust thickness and color */
    }
}

/* To change text color within a specific element, use the 'color' property */
.entry-title {
    color: #yourcolorhere;
}

Important Note on Transparency: If your goal is to make these areas transparent to show a background image, you can use RGBA color values or the transparent keyword. A user successfully used this code:

.site, .site:before {
    background-color: rgba(10,40,60,.1); /* The last value (.1) controls transparency */
}

Troubleshooting Specific Pages

If you need to change the background of a single page or post, you must use a more specific CSS selector. For a post with the ID 498, the correct approach is to inspect the page using a browser tool like Firebug to find the unique classes assigned to the body tag. The code might look like this:

.page-id-498 .content-area {
    background-color: #ffffff;
}

Conclusion

Customizing the Twenty Fourteen theme's colors is a straightforward process once you know which CSS elements to target. Always remember to use a child theme or a custom CSS plugin to ensure your changes remain safe after theme updates. For more targeted help, using a browser inspection tool is invaluable for identifying the exact CSS class you need to override.

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