Pod Faces (Custom Appearance)

Last updated: 2026-08-14

What Pod Faces are

Every pod has its own culture — Pod Faces let it have its own look. A face is a custom appearance for the app designed by a pod's leadership: a color scheme, an icon style, and custom menu names that reshape the home screen, buttons, and navigation.

The important part: wearing a face is always the member's choice. When a pod publishes a face, nobody's app changes automatically. Each member decides whether to wear it, and can switch back to the classic SpiritDAO look at any time. Your community designs the look; you decide whether it's yours.

A face changes colors, main-screen icons, and menu-button names only. Governance, treasury, permissions, and how everything works stay exactly the same.

Wearing a look (members)

There are two ways to put on a pod's face:

From the pod's page:

1. Open the pod's page. If the pod has a published face and you're a member, a "Wear this look" chip appears next to the pod's status badge.
2. Tap it. The app re-colors instantly — no reload needed. The chip changes to "Wearing this look ✓".
3. Tap it again anytime to return to the default appearance.

From your Identity page (the full picker):

1. Open Identity and scroll to the Appearance section.
2. You'll see SpiritDAO default plus a row for each of your pods that has published a face, each with a small color swatch preview.
3. Tap any row to wear that look. The checkmark shows what's active.

Things to know:

• Your chosen look follows you across the whole app and persists across sessions and reloads.
• You can only wear faces from pods you belong to. If you leave a pod, its face simply stops applying and you return to the default.
• If a pod updates its face, you'll see the new version automatically. If a pod removes its face while you're wearing it, you return to the default — nothing breaks.
• The Appearance section only appears once at least one of your pods has published a face.

Designing a face (pod leaders)

You need the appearance management permission (leaders have it by default once the module is on).

1. Open your pod's Manage page → Modules tab.
2. Under Add-On Modules, toggle on Custom Appearance (palette icon). The face editor opens right there.
3. Design your look:
   • Start from a palette — five presets (Forest, Ocean, Dusk, Ember, Slate) give you a coherent starting point.
   • Fine-tune each color — seven color slots, each labeled with what it controls (buttons and links, background, text, section surfaces, alerts).
   • Pick an icon set — keep the SpiritDAO default icons, or apply a curated set (Linework for clean outlines, Cosmos for playful symbols).
   • Upload your own icons — this is where your community's identity really comes through. In the "Your own icons" grid, upload your own artwork for any home-screen button, navigation icon, or even the logo. Your icon overrides the icon set for that slot; Clear reverts it. Square images look best (128×128px or larger; PNG, JPEG, or WebP, up to 1MB each).
   • Rename menu items — give home-screen buttons your community's own words: Bounties can become Quests, Governance can become Council, Chat can become Campfire. Type a new name (up to 20 characters) under any button; leave a field blank to keep the standard name. Only the button label changes — the pages themselves keep their standard titles, so nobody gets lost.
   • The live preview shows a miniature home screen and navigation bar updating as you work.
4. Save draft as often as you like — drafts are only visible to people who can edit the face, never to members.
5. Publish when ready. Members of your pod can now wear the look, and they'll get a one-time notification that it's available.

Things to know:

• Accessibility is enforced. The editor continuously shows contrast ratios between your text and background colors. If a combination falls below the WCAG AA readability standard, Publish is disabled until you fix it — a face can be bold, but it must be readable.
• Publishing never forces the look on anyone. It just makes it available to choose.
• Editing a published face and saving it as a draft temporarily unpublishes it (members revert to default until you publish again) — the editor warns you before this happens.
• Remove face reverts everything: the face disappears from members' pickers and anyone wearing it returns to the default look.
• Like every pod capability, face design can be delegated: grant a role the Appearance Manage permission in your pod's role settings, and holders of that role can design and publish without being leaders.

Frequently asked

Can I wear a face from a pod I'm not in? No — faces are a membership perk. Join the pod first.

I'm in several pods with faces. Can I mix them? You wear one face at a time (or the default). Switch between them freely in Identity → Appearance.

Does a face change other members' screens? Never. Each member's choice is their own.

Can we use our own logo and icons, not just the built-in sets? Yes — that's the heart of the feature. Upload your community's own artwork per button in the editor's "Your own icons" grid. The curated sets are just a quick coherent base; your uploads always win for the slots you customize.

Can we rename the menu items too? Yes — the "Rename menu items" section of the editor lets you rename any home-screen button (up to 20 characters each). Renames travel with the face: members wearing your look see your names; everyone else sees the standard ones. Page headings and notifications keep the standard names so instructions and guides still make sense.

Does it work in dark mode? Faces currently apply to the standard (light) appearance only.

Something looks unreadable after switching? That shouldn't happen — contrast is checked at publish — but you can always revert instantly via Identity → Appearance → SpiritDAO default.