Posted: Wednesday, June 15th, 2011 at 4:09 pm. Filed in Customization, Design, Features, New Features, Upgrade.
Personalize Your Blog with the New Custom Design Upgrade
Today we’re excited to bring you Custom Design, a powerful new tool that combines easy to use, code-free font selection from Typekit and a beautiful CSS editing interface with world-class support from our famous WordPress.com Happiness Engineers.
You’ll find both new features—Fonts and CSS—under Appearance → Custom Design in your dashboard. Custom Design costs just $30 a year, and both features include a free preview so you can try them out first.
Example of Custom Design landing screen.
Fonts Made Super Easy
The Font Editor provides a visual preview of your blog with over 50 gorgeous premium Typekit fonts—from foundries like Mark Simonson, exljbris, FontFont, and the League of Moveable Type—and allows you to easily modify the size and style of your fonts. It works with all themes, no coding skills required!
Example of choosing fonts with the Font Editor.
We worked closely with Typekit on this new tool—incorporating their long experience with delivering beautiful fonts on the web—to create the best experience possible. With the Custom Design upgrade comes the ability to manage all your Typekit fonts settings from within your dashboard; you no longer need to make a roundtrip to Typekit and back to update the fonts on your blog.
If you are already using Typekit fonts on your blog, you are grandfathered in—meaning your fonts will continue to display as they do now but you’ll have limited editing and functionality. To take advantage of all the new features, we encourage you to upgrade to Custom Design.
CSS Backed by Expertise
Our popular CSS editing tool received a visual refresh with its merge into the Custom Design upgrade. If you know your way around a cascading style sheet, you can use the CSS Editor to really put a personal touch on your blog and create an entirely new design.
CSS editor in action.
If your site already has custom CSS enabled, it will continue to work as it does now, and visitors will see no changes to your design. Furthermore, you’ve been upgraded to the new Custom Design package for free, so you now have full access to all the new features, including the Font Editor.
Along with the CSS Editor updates we’re making the WordPress.com CSS forum officially supported by the WP.com Happiness team. Bring your CSS customization questions to the forum and you can get expert help.
From your feedback—and by seeing your cool customizations in use all over WordPress.com—we know that design tools on WordPress.com are put to good use, so we hope you love this new upgrade. Fonts are now incredibly easy. We’re now helping you craft your CSS. Let’s make something beautiful.
If you’d like more details on the new upgrade, head over to Custom Design.
![[P]](http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/e7de7fd299fd9c3f61b670e2bdfc2fb3?s=30&d=retro){kind=avatar}
June 15th, 2011 at 4:15 pm
What a great way for novice bloggers, like myself, to use different fonts.
June 15th, 2011 at 4:20 pm
Great, great idea; that empowers the user to not have to run out and hire a designer to make such small fundamental customizations. Good job WordPress.com!
June 15th, 2011 at 4:21 pm
Great new feature, gets out cc.
June 15th, 2011 at 4:23 pm
Woah! CSS support? Awesome!
June 15th, 2011 at 4:24 pm
Although I am happy with the kind of design I have right now, it seems like a fantastic upgrade and especially the fact that the forum is getting the full attention of wp.com’s engineers is yet another awesome thing!
Keep ‘em coming!
June 15th, 2011 at 4:26 pm
Only for those who can afford.
June 15th, 2011 at 4:36 pm
If the Custom Design upgrade looks too steep we still have over 100 beautiful free themes — and many more on the way — with their own style and personality. Many, like the just-released Twenty Eleven, have their own custom design options that let you tweak your blog’s look to your liking.
June 15th, 2011 at 4:46 pm
I really like the idea of font customization. There are many themes I would like to use, but I reject them because of the font. I think many bloggers underestimate the importance of easy to read fonts in the body of their posts!
June 15th, 2011 at 5:02 pm
Thanks bunches, guys! I’m going to try it out on my test blog in a second. (I’m too chicken to dink around and mess up my current css yet).. X
June 15th, 2011 at 5:15 pm
Fantastic addition! Customizing fonts would allow us to make our blogs more unique.
June 15th, 2011 at 5:27 pm
I like love any idea about customization. I may consider this!
June 15th, 2011 at 5:47 pm
Totally liking this feature. Been using Typekit and Custom CSS already and this is a wonderful addtion.
June 15th, 2011 at 5:58 pm
New upgrades on design sound great , I’m very happy with the way my blog looks , but it’s nice to have cool options right !!?!
June 15th, 2011 at 6:07 pm
Bravo! Typefaces can have an amazing impact on the look and feel of any communication using the written word. Type can change the mood from happy to sad or from frivolous to serious. Thanks so much!
June 15th, 2011 at 6:09 pm
Amazing! I don’t get the codes at all, so this makes all the problems vanish! If I can figure out how to work CSS, that’s just another bonus. Thanks WordPress!
June 15th, 2011 at 6:35 pm
I played around with the free trial and it’s great! It’s so easy to use. I just bought a new theme (Traction) and I wanted to change the font around. I’m most likely going to try this.
I do have a question, though. If I get Custom Design, will I be able to play around/have full access with the CSS coding or is that separate?
June 15th, 2011 at 7:08 pm
Yep. Custom CSS and Fonts are both activated with the Custom Design upgrade so you’ll have full access to the CSS.
June 15th, 2011 at 6:36 pm
Cool feature, but I just can’t bring myself to pay for all these new shiny upgrades on a free hosting service that limits the capability of my blogs. It’s starting to feel very much like the free WordPress.com is slowly being killed off while still restricting WordPress. If you start taking the limits on your service away, and allow us to run a full-fledged working WordPress platform, then I’m all for paying for these upgrades.
June 15th, 2011 at 6:40 pm
Nice! I’ll give it a whirl!
June 15th, 2011 at 6:46 pm
Good news! The “old way we used to setup TypeKit before was a bit anti-user-friendly. This one is great.
June 15th, 2011 at 7:58 pm
Wonderful! I’m with Margie — there are lots of blog designs that I liked more than the simple one I ended up picking. So many seemed to have tough fonts to read – and since a large portion of my readers are 50+ being easy to read is really important in my blog.
Looking forward to expiermenting with this in the near future!
June 15th, 2011 at 8:07 pm
Cool. CSS support forum. That’s added bonus for me.
June 15th, 2011 at 8:16 pm
Wow, this is great news. I am in the process of sourcing a custom WordPress theme designer for my new web site, but perhaps I can try out WP’s Custom Design instead and save some cash! Glad to hear it’s user-friendly and intuitive.
June 15th, 2011 at 8:33 pm
Wowers, I am a totally un-coded tech-phobe, so you WordPress folks are wonders in making the world of cyberspace…almost understandable (albeit at a basic level).
Thanks for all your work behind the scenes, look forward to learning more about how to negotiate the WordPress world
June 15th, 2011 at 8:48 pm
A good feature! I will try it.
June 15th, 2011 at 9:22 pm
Awesome, I love that you are officially going to be providing support for CSS, the volunteers need all the help they can get!
June 15th, 2011 at 9:22 pm
Cool, will take advantage!
June 15th, 2011 at 9:41 pm
Great!
June 15th, 2011 at 10:07 pm
This is great!! Love the options.
June 15th, 2011 at 10:35 pm
Looking forward to checking this out!
June 15th, 2011 at 10:42 pm
Nice!!
June 15th, 2011 at 10:56 pm
REALLY looking forward to trying this out — anything that makes the experience less cumbersome is a good thing, as I want to be able to focus on my writing!
June 15th, 2011 at 11:07 pm
Exactly what I’ve been looking for. Now if I could only get it to work with my Word Documents I’d be set! Good job again as usual WP!
June 15th, 2011 at 11:25 pm
It don’t feel its worth thirty dollars, for you to take away free Typekit support. The font changing part should be a free option. While the interface is a fantastic feat you need to drop the price to an impulse buy. $10 for the font options, $20 for CSS, $30 combo for those who need both. The majority of people aren’t going to use CSS.
June 15th, 2011 at 11:41 pm
Nice, but I can’t afford it, yet.
June 15th, 2011 at 11:55 pm
amazing update, great work guys
June 16th, 2011 at 12:33 am
I love the idea of official CSS support in the forum and I love my CSS Upgrade. Do I really need Typekit too if I can change my fonts with the CSS Upgrade? I’ve found that blogs with Typekit tend to load very slowly. Not quite sure why you married these two upgrades and whether that’s truly beneficial or simply a higher cost. But I appreciate being grandfathered in and the discount for the next round very much!
July 1st, 2011 at 12:27 am
In addition to the CSS editor, the WordPress.com Custom Design upgrade includes a popular set of Typekit fonts which can be managed directly inside your WordPress.com site admin pages. If you combine the Custom Design upgrade with a Typekit account from Typekit.com, you get access to the Typekit.com kit editor and the entire Typekit font library. So if you’re happy with the fonts in the WordPress.com Custom Fonts page, you don’t need to have an additional Typekit.com account.
June 16th, 2011 at 12:37 am
It’s really cool, thanks. I’ll try it now.
June 16th, 2011 at 12:50 am
Wow, thank you so much for this! WordPress rocks!
June 16th, 2011 at 12:59 am
*Reads about personalizing blog with custom designs.* Happy, happy, happy, “like” times a billion!
*Reads that it’ll cost money.* Face droops.
June 16th, 2011 at 1:14 am
Looks really great!
June 16th, 2011 at 1:28 am
I can see how this can be a big plus to serious bloggers… for myself and all the would-be bloggers the free stuff is more than sufficient
June 16th, 2011 at 1:30 am
Yay!! Another step toward greatness.
June 16th, 2011 at 1:57 am
Thanks for the update
June 16th, 2011 at 2:23 am
Great new service. Amazing WordPress.
June 16th, 2011 at 4:12 am
This is pretty cool!
June 16th, 2011 at 5:43 am
$30 is not a great deal but in some countries online transaction is very difficult. In my country PayPal is not allowed, and a credit card is hard to get.
June 16th, 2011 at 6:09 am
That’s JUST what I’ve been hoping for. No time to play around with CSS. Consider yourself $30 richer.
June 16th, 2011 at 6:12 am
Good offers, but I know that there are some nice themes for free with awesome designs, and also more easy to use.
June 16th, 2011 at 6:33 am
Amazing.
June 16th, 2011 at 6:45 am
Great job, I purchased it 5 minutes after trying it out. Thanks WordPress!
June 16th, 2011 at 6:57 am
Wow, nice change, I like it.
June 16th, 2011 at 7:18 am
I wish some of those features were free — though the upgrade is appreciated.
June 16th, 2011 at 8:00 am
Good to see the custom design available!
June 16th, 2011 at 8:34 am
Woo, amazing. I am gonna try it.
June 16th, 2011 at 9:29 am
Another awesome thing from WordPress.
June 16th, 2011 at 10:52 am
I love that WordPress is constantly working to make its service better for it’s users. Kudos to you!
June 16th, 2011 at 10:59 am
I really do love customizing my fonts into my own personal way that I like. But, the only thing that’s holding me back is the money I have to pay.
June 16th, 2011 at 12:19 pm
While this is a nice upgrade (the preview before you pay is very nice), I myself am quite disappointed in this change. I’ve seen it coming for several months now: WP is starting to nickel and dime us with [paid] options. And in this case, after first giving them to us for free. As a TypeKit user, I went in to check out the new Fonts options. Typekit offers so many more fonts! My current font isn’t available via the WP dashboard.
Most of the time I feel that WP does a good job of going over and above its users’ expectations, but in this case, they slipped up. If I want to mess with my fonts, I’ll just go self hosted. That’s cheaper than this upgrade.
June 16th, 2011 at 1:18 pm
Will I ‘upgrade’ for 30$/ £20 per year? Nope, it’s far too expensive, especially considering Blogger and LiveJournal charge nothing for customising CSS sheets, they are ad supported though so I suppose that makes a difference.
June 16th, 2011 at 2:05 pm
Does 30 dollars cover all the sites you have on a WordPress.com blog or just one? WordPress.com is great and a big thanks for always evolving!
June 16th, 2011 at 2:27 pm
Thanks! The cost covers one blog.
June 16th, 2011 at 3:23 pm
Good stuff. I’ll be using this feature.
June 16th, 2011 at 3:35 pm
Good deal – thanks.
June 16th, 2011 at 3:51 pm
I love these new features! When I’m typing a document using Microsoft Word, I keep changing the fonts. I was disappointed when I couldn’t change what font my blog had without getting a Typekit account. Thank you so much!
June 16th, 2011 at 5:01 pm
Looks awesome!
June 16th, 2011 at 7:33 pm
This is totally amazing really. Makes blogging interesting. Thanks.
June 16th, 2011 at 9:02 pm
Great job, WordPress. I’ve been hoping for something like this. ^^
June 17th, 2011 at 8:32 am
Awesome!
Too bad it’s not for free. Ah, well, we can only have so much free stuff.
June 17th, 2011 at 10:53 am
I guess I will get to learn how to do this…EVENTUALLY!!!!!
June 17th, 2011 at 3:17 pm
Good, but not free.
June 17th, 2011 at 3:53 pm
The interface looks great & easy to use, but it feels weird to pay for fonts when the feature used to be free. And paying for CSS when Blogger does it for free? Also confusing. Would totally jump on board if it was free though!
June 17th, 2011 at 8:59 pm
Well, it’s great and everything but it’s kind of expensive and I’m the kind of the blogger that doesn’t write everyday, and I’m only 12 so I’m not going to waste my allowance in that! Sorry.
June 17th, 2011 at 10:51 pm
Not free …but certainly reasonable.
June 18th, 2011 at 1:59 pm
Cool stuff!
June 18th, 2011 at 11:59 pm
Nice to hear, but just wondering why there’s a charge for this when you can do it for free on Blogger? It’s frustrating that you have pay if you want any customizations in WordPress.
June 19th, 2011 at 9:43 am
Design costs just $30 a year. No thanks. For this money I can rent my own server and do everything I want.
June 19th, 2011 at 2:43 pm
This is a good upgrade! Thanks!
June 19th, 2011 at 5:21 pm
Excellent! Just wish the $30 covered up to, say, two or three blogs. I’d like to be able to play with the CSS on a test blog before rolling it out in my main blog. Or maybe it’s possible to transfer the upgrade from blog to blog…? I guess that could get quite confusing and become a PITA for the developers.
June 20th, 2011 at 4:00 pm
For testing on multiple blogs we recommend entering the CSS code and using the free preview feature. You can preview font changes for free, too.
June 20th, 2011 at 1:41 am
Woo, amazing. I am gonna try it.
June 20th, 2011 at 2:01 am
So I’m glad that you guys are making tools for changing the appearance of the blogs. But at the same time, I’m kind of disturbed that we should have to pay to pick between a serif and sans-serif font, and to pick between -1, 0, and +1 for font sizes. I’m not saying anything about the huge varieties of TypeKit fonts and the nice previewing mechanism you provided. I just think that users should be able to do the most basic font changes for free, even if it is just the difference between choosing between default serif and default sans-serif. Putting aside how much I love the way my blog looks with Museo headers, all I really need is that basic functionality, and 30$ is too steep for just that.
June 20th, 2011 at 8:15 am
Good. I love it! And I want to learn more.
June 20th, 2011 at 1:30 pm
It’s awesome. I hope I can make my own theme with this cool tool.
June 21st, 2011 at 1:35 pm
WordPress you do so much lovely stuff for free that I have no problem paying for nice twiddly bits and this is certainly one of those. Great job and really looking forward to playing with those fabulous fonts.
June 21st, 2011 at 3:47 pm
Wow. Awesome.
June 22nd, 2011 at 12:18 am
Too expensive…
June 22nd, 2011 at 2:24 am
I need to wait until I have a job.
But I like these features.
June 22nd, 2011 at 11:27 am
Important step toward the right direction…
June 22nd, 2011 at 2:10 pm
I like it!
June 22nd, 2011 at 5:58 pm
This is fantastic! Just what I have been looking for!
June 23rd, 2011 at 7:38 pm
I’m with Casey! It was all good play with until you scroll to the bottom and realize there is a $30. And that wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t hosting 3 separate blogs on your server. $30/year for all registered blogs = more reasonable. But when you look at it, it’s really just $3.00 a month and there is NO designer out there who will even change the background color of your site for that price. *shrugs shoulders* Whatever works!
June 23rd, 2011 at 11:14 pm
Love it! and might go for it ……
June 24th, 2011 at 12:34 pm
I’ve not long joined so I’m happy this has happened now – anything to help make the blog stand out a bit more.
June 24th, 2011 at 2:25 pm
I agree these are nice features but 30 per year seems kind of steep for what it is.
June 24th, 2011 at 3:45 pm
WordPress is getting better and better!
This is such great news.
June 25th, 2011 at 1:11 am
I like this update.
June 25th, 2011 at 3:05 am
Perhaps a bit pricey? Ah well. Aside from that small hindrance, it’s a nice option.
June 25th, 2011 at 3:04 pm
Good move. I think I can use this for my blog!
June 25th, 2011 at 9:27 pm
Amazing development, I love it!
June 25th, 2011 at 10:43 pm
Great! I just started and something good is happening!
I love the idea of new fonts!
June 26th, 2011 at 3:26 am
There is definitely a useful tool to get a more personal look and at the same time you do not need to use the toolkit with fonts that was difficult to figure out where they was in certain formats. At least me who has been only blogging for 4 months now, but I love it. Thanks for giving me a new hobby as work.