Appearance & Branding
Make the archive feel like your family archive.
JFA provides a small set of visual profiles and archive identity settings so a new installation has a coherent starting point without forcing every family archive to look the same.
Two layers of presentation
A Family Archive installation lives inside WordPress, so its appearance has two related layers.
WORDPRESS
The surrounding website
Your WordPress theme controls the wider site: its general header, footer, typography and any pages that are not part of the JFA interface.
JFA
The family archive
JFA provides its own archive presentation and design profiles for the people, photographs, documents and other archive views it renders.
A JFA profile does not replace your WordPress theme.
Think of the JFA profile as the visual character of the archive itself. The surrounding WordPress site can still have its own theme and identity.
Archive identity
The archive name should tell relatives what they are entering. It does not have to use the software name “JFA” or “Family Archive”.
Family
The Holm Family Archive
Useful when one family or surname is the natural centre of the collection.
Place
Memories from Björkdal
Useful when a place, farm, village or family home connects much of the material.
Collection
Our Family History
A broader name can work well when several branches of a family share the same archive.
Name the archive for its audience, not for the plugin.
The software can remain almost invisible to relatives. What matters to them is that they recognize whose photographs, stories and documents they are exploring.
Choose a starting profile
JFA includes three design profiles. They provide useful starting points rather than three completely different applications.
01 · Neutral
Quiet and adaptable.
Neutral is a restrained starting point intended to sit comfortably alongside many WordPress themes and different kinds of family material.
Choose it when you want the photographs and documents to carry most of the visual character.
02 · Classic
Traditional family-history character.
Classic provides a more traditional visual direction that can suit historical photographs, letters and archival records.
Choose it when you want the archive to lean slightly more toward a traditional family-history presentation.
03 · Modern
Clean and contemporary.
Modern gives the JFA interface a cleaner contemporary character while keeping the archive material itself in focus.
Choose it when the surrounding site or your own preference leans toward a more current digital presentation.
You are not making a permanent decision
The first-install setup asks for a starting profile because a new archive needs some presentation from the beginning. You can adjust the appearance later as the archive develops.
This is especially useful after adding real photographs and documents. A profile that looked ideal on an empty site may feel different once the archive contains its actual material.
Let the material guide the design
Historical material already brings colour, texture and visual complexity. The archive interface does not need to compete with every photograph, handwritten letter or scanned newspaper clipping.
READABILITY
Keep text easy to read
Descriptions, dates, provenance and family stories should remain comfortable to read on both desktop and mobile screens.
MATERIAL
Give files room
Photographs and documents should remain the visual focus instead of becoming decoration inside an overly elaborate interface.
CONSISTENCY
Use one visual language
A consistent archive is easier for relatives to understand than one where every page uses a completely different presentation.
Check the archive with real content
Before spending too much time adjusting appearance, add a representative sample of the material the archive will actually contain.
1
Add a few people
Use real person names and relationships from the archive so person pages have realistic content.
2
Add different material types
Include photographs, an album and at least one document so the archive is not judged from one empty page type.
3
View it as a relative
Leave WordPress administration and browse the archive from the frontend. The family-facing experience matters more than how the settings screen looks.
4
Then refine the profile
Choose the visual direction that best supports the material and the surrounding WordPress site.
The best profile is the one relatives stop noticing.
The interface should help people reach photographs, documents, stories and family relationships without making the visual theme itself the main attraction.
Troubleshooting →
Diagnose common installation, storage, import and access problems before assuming that archive data is damaged.