Puzzle branding
Learn how to customize the visual appearance of your puzzles to match your brand.
Introduction
Branding lets you customize how your puzzles look to match your publication, event, or sponsor. You can customize all puzzles in a series at once, or individual puzzles for special occasions. Feature availability may vary by plan.
Getting started
Series branding
Apply consistent branding to all puzzles in a series. Perfect for maintaining your publication's look across daily or weekly puzzles.
How to use Series Branding:
- From your dashboard, choose the series you want to brand.
- Click the Branding icon in the series controls section (top of the page).
- If your series has more than one puzzle type, a popup will appear asking you to choose the game type you'd like to brand. Select the puzzle type you want to apply branding to.
- Adjust your settings for fonts, colors, and more using the controls on the right.
- Watch your changes update in real-time on the preview puzzle.
- Use the Reset button to start over, or Save when you're satisfied.
Your branding changes will update the look and feel of all games of this puzzle type in the series after saving.
Note: These settings can be overridden by Individual puzzle branding.
Consider creating separate series for each puzzle type (e.g., one for all your Crosswords, another for all your Sudokus).
This strategy lets you apply unique branding to each puzzle type. It's also a great way to manage specific series-level settings for each game.
Individual puzzle branding
Customize specific puzzles for special events, sponsors, or unique publications. These settings override series branding when applied.
How to use Individual puzzle branding:
- From your dashboard, find the puzzle you want to customize.
- Click the Branding button (the paintbrush icon) in that puzzle's action row.
- Select the puzzle type you want to preview your branding on.
- Adjust the settings for colors, fonts, and other visual elements using the controls on the right.
- Watch your changes update in real-time on the preview puzzle.
- Use the Reset button to start over, or Save when you're satisfied.
Your branding changes will update the look and feel of this specific puzzle after saving.
Common use cases:
- Special events: Apply unique branding for holidays or anniversaries.
- Sponsored puzzles: Add a sponsor's logo and color scheme.
- A/B testing: Experiment with different looks to see what your audience prefers.
- Unique publications: Give puzzles in different sections of your site a distinct feel.
How it works: PuzzleMe applies branding in this order:
- Individual puzzle branding (if set)
- Series branding (if set)
- Default PuzzleMe theme
The branding interface
When you open the branding tool, you'll see a live preview of your puzzle showing how your branding changes look, and on the right side, all the customization controls organized in panels
As you adjust settings on the right, you'll see your changes update instantly on the preview puzzle. This lets you experiment with different looks and see exactly how your branding will appear to solvers.
Preset themes
Start with one of 7 preset themes, each with pre-configured colors and fonts. These themes are designed with carefully chosen color palettes and typography that work beautifully together. Select a theme that matches your brand, then customize any setting to make it uniquely yours.
Here's what each theme includes:
Ink (default)
Sunset
Ocean
Forest
Candy
Grape
Typewriter
Customization options
Fonts
You can choose from over 1,500 Google Fonts for your puzzles. Use the font selection box to search by name or filter by language and style (like serif or monospace). The font you pick will be used for all text outside the puzzle grid.
PuzzleMe automatically chooses black or white text for the best contrast with your background colors. All fonts are from the Google Fonts catalog and are licensed for use on your website.
Custom fonts
If your preferred font isn't in the Google Fonts library, you can add your own.
- The font file must be in WOFF2 format.
- It must be hosted on your own server.
- Your server must allow the font to be loaded by
amuselabs.com.
To add a custom font, type the font name and its URL in the font field, separated by a pipe (|). For example:
Sofia | https://example.com/font/sofia.woff2
- Always use secure
httpslinks for your font files. If you use HTTP links, the fonts will not load. - Only use the font name (e.g.,
Sofia), notSofia, serif.
If you use Adobe Fonts, we can integrate them for you. Feature availability may vary by plan. Please contact us to get started.
Colors
Primary
This color applies to the dialog buttons and the cell with focus on the grid.
Secondary
This color applies to the clue bar (on desktop and mobile), the selected clue (on desktop and mobile), the dialog buttons on hover, and the background of the selected word in the grid.
Print customization
Many solvers prefer solving their puzzles on paper, or saving them as PDF. Our print customization options help you control the design of the following elements of the printed puzzles:
- Grid position
- Title position
- Masthead
Grid and title position
Masthead
This field takes an image URL as input. Whenever solvers print a puzzle or save it as PDF, by default no image appears at the top of the print page. When a masthead image is specified via the branding tool, the masthead image is included at the top of the page. You can use your publication or website logo image for the masthead.
- The height available to the masthead is shorter than its width. Thus, please use an image with a wide aspect ratio (where the width is greater than the height). Using a narrow aspect ratio image would squish the logo and display it in a very small size.
- Only SVG, PNG and JPG file formats are supported.
- The preferred file format is SVG, since it helps keep the size of the print PDFs small.
- Crossword
- Word Search
- Codeword
- Kriss Kross
- Sudoku
Grid design
Grid font
The grid font applies to both the letters and the clue numbers in the boxes. Make sure that the numbers are legible with the chosen font. You can check if making the font bold helps.
Empty box
Conventionally, empty boxes (also called block cells) use a shade of black color. You can override this color to create a more unique grid appearance.
Lines
By default, gridlines are drawn in thin style, using the black color. You can change both the color and the thickness of the gridlines.
- Crossword
- Sudoku
- Kriss Kross
- Codeword
- Word Search (only grid font)
Game type specific options
Word flower
Word flower specific design options are available under the "Flower" and the "Buttons" sections of the series branding tool.
Flower design options
- Letter font : This is the font used to show the letters inside the Word Flower petals.
- Click color : Whenver solvers click on a petal to enter the letter, the background color of the petal momentarily changes to the click color.
- Border color : This is used to set the color of the flower border.
- Flower center color : This is used to fill the empty spaces between the central petal and the outer petals.
Button design options
- Button color : This sets the default background color for the shuffle, backspace and enter buttons available below the flower.
- Click color : Whenever solvers click on a button below the flower, the background color of the button momentarily changes to the click color.
WordroW
WordroW specific design options are available under the "General" and the "Indicator colors" sections of the series branding tool.
General design options
- Modal color : This sets the background color of the headers of modals (popups / dialog boxes).
- Modal button color : This sets the background color of the buttons used in modals (eg. clear/save etc.).
Indicator color options
Indicator colors are used in the background of the grid letters, to provide feedback to the solvers about the correctness of their entries.
- Correct position color : Used when the correct letter has been entered, in the correct position
- Incorrect position color : Used when a letter belonging to the word has been entered, but in an incorrect position
- Absent color : Used when the letter entered does not belong to the word
- Focus box color : Used to highlight the actively selected letter
Quiz
Quiz specific design options are available under the "General" and the "Quiz" sections of the series branding tool.
The following background colors can be customized:
- Component color : Used for the question area, the options buttons (for multiple choice questions), the answer field (for freeform questions) and the navigation buttons (Previus, Next)
- Hover color : Used when hovering over the navigation buttons, the question numbers (at the top of the quiz), the options buttons (for multiple choice questions) and the "Enter" button (for freeform questions)
- Current question color : Used for the currently active question number, in the question number list at the top of the quiz
- Submitted question color : Used to indicate already answered questions, in the question number list at the top of the quiz
Strategies for effective branding
Here are a few strategies and best practices to help you create puzzles that look great and align perfectly with your brand.
For a consistent brand identity
Use Series branding to establish your signature look. This is the best way to ensure all your daily or weekly puzzles have a consistent, professional appearance that your audience will recognize. Set it once, and you're ready to go.
Designing for a great player experience
- Readability is key. Your players need to be able to read clues and see the grid clearly. Always choose fonts and colors that have good contrast.
- Stay on brand. Even when creating a unique design for a single puzzle, make sure it still feels like it's coming from you. A consistent feel builds trust.
- Always test on mobile. Before you launch, check how your branding looks on different devices, especially phones where space is limited.
- Clean up after the party. If you create special branding for an event, remember to remove or update it once the event is over.
PuzzleMe applies branding in a specific order:
- It first looks for Individual branding.
- If that's not set, it uses Series branding.
- If neither exists, it defaults to the standard PuzzleMe theme.