Google Forms – Changing the theme

We can make Google Forms a little more aesthetically pleasing by changing the theme and so that it can look a little more fun or professional and that it includes the colours that we want.

Here we’ll look at:

  • Changing the background colour
  • Changing the header template
  • Choosing a different form font
  • Adding your own image
  • Changing the theme colour

Changing the background colour of the form

By default, your form will be purple. You can very quickly change the colour by going to the colour palette menu.

On the side, you will be presented with a few options. You can control the header colour and image, the theme colour, the background colour (which is the part to the side of the main form body), and a few font choices.


Adding a header template

Under header, click “Choose header”. Here, you’ll see various images you can use instead of the plain header, and also the option to upload your own image.

Let’s start by adding a template. Choose one of the images from one of the categories. Click the image and click the Select button.

This will add the header.

On the form the user will see, it looks like this:

It also updates the overall theme, so that the theme colours and background colours match the image. On the sidebar, we can see it lets us know an image has been uploaded and has also updated the theme and background colour choices.

We can change the theme colours by clicking on one of the circles.

We can also change the background colour, although here the choice is limited.


Changing the form font

Finally, we can also change the font of the titles and questions.

Again, the choice is limited.

Here, I’ve selected the ‘playful’ font.


Adding your own image

We can also upload out own photos. From the Select header menu, click on “Upload”.

Click “Browse” or as it states, drag a file onto the dialogue box.

Select your photo and click “Open”.

Choose your photo and once uploaded, it will ask you to crop it so it fits on the screen correctly. Just move the rectangle to the part of the photo you want to show, and then click “Done”.

Long, thin photos are best, 800 x 200 pixels, i.e. 4 times as long as it is high.

As we can see it’s changed the header image and as my image wasn’t long and thin it’s cropped it, but sometimes that’s the look you want.

What is nice, is that even when you upload your own image, the theme and background colours change to try to match them.

Changing the theme colour

Apart from uploading images and choosing templates, we can keep it simpler by just changing the theme colour. Click on one of the circles.

This will change the header, background and section colours.

You’re not limited to the palette of colours, if you click on the + circle, this will allow you to choose a full range of colours.

You also have the option of entering the colour as a hexadecimal code, if you want to be precise and get an exact colour. This is particularly useful if you have corporate colours and you want the forms to match them.


This post is taken from my book “Step-by-step Guide to Google Forms”, available on Amazon here.

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