Logo design, logo designer | Customize your WordPress login

73 spot-on reader comments to “Customize your WordPress login”

1. Ben, on July 10th, 2007 said:

   Aww - that sucks. I have just started a post about this that was going to go in my Wordpress Tips and Tricks series :(

   I actually had something slightly different in mind so will probably finish it up anyway - maybe you can post about my post then :)

   FWIW the post itself is good. I just need to do something better

2. Connor Wilson, on July 10th, 2007 said:

   I recently recolored my backend and made a WordPress admin skin of sorts. I only changed the CSS, because I didn’t want to touch anything important, yet.

3. David Airey :: Creative Design ::, on July 10th, 2007 said:
   Ben,

   Don’t let me stop you, by any means. It was through your 9rules note that I saw Ayush’s article, so I should thank you for the indirect signpost.

   Connor,

   I like your subtle changes to the back-end. As I said on your article, I once tried out the Tiger Admin Panel, but in the end reverted to the standard as it suits my needs.

4. Ben, on July 10th, 2007 said:

   David - I did wonder if it was the 9rules thing that got you started :) I did have a slightly different idea for my post about this so will still finish it up.

5. Tara: Graphic Design Blog, on July 10th, 2007 said:

   I had never thought about designing my wordpress login page, but its a good idea especially if you make a login easily available to readers. As you suggest this would be very good for wordpress as a CMS, which I am very interested in finding more about. If you do end up using Wordpress for a client I’d love to hear how you get on.

6. Aaron :: miLienzo.com, on July 10th, 2007 said:

   Nice tip David - I’ll have a try at this, this weekend. Just need to remember the modified files next time you upgrade WordPress.

7. Tammy Lenski, on July 10th, 2007 said:

   Well, David, I’m clearly no graphic designer, but I love teaching myself new things, so gave it a whirl. This was the result:

   http://lenski.com/wp-login.php

   Thanks for the cool information!

8. David Airey :: Creative Design ::, on July 10th, 2007 said:
   I look forward to your post, Ben. Apologies if I stole your thunder in any way.

   Tara,

   If I go ahead with WP as a CMS for a client I’ll be sure to let you know.

   Aaron,

   That’s a good point. I hadn’t thought about the image files being updated with a WP upgrade, and wasn’t actually sure if there were.

   Tammy,

   Nice job. ;)

   I’m glad you got it working for your own login page and thanks for showcasing it.

9. Shonnie Lavender, on July 10th, 2007 said:

   Oooh fun!! :-D I’ll be doing this for clients from now on. Thanks for the idea David. Here’s my example: http://shonnielavender.com/blogcoach/wp-login.php

10. Damien King - Website Design Blog, on July 10th, 2007 said:

    You’ve got a pretty cool looking login box there David! I wish I could show some examples of what I’ve done, but in the past when I integrate a blog into a website I put it all together under a global login, as part of the CMS backend as a whole.

    If I’m approached purely to design a blog then I’ll make sure to remember to customise the login screen too ;)

11. Anna Vester, on July 10th, 2007 said:

    Cool, nice tip. I am planning on tweaking my theme a bit more these days, and most likely login form will get customized first. Thanks!

12. LaurenMarie, on July 10th, 2007 said:

    Great idea! There are so many little things to customize, I don’t know if I’ll ever be finished! But I think they all add to the user/reader experience (even behind the scenes stuff like that can really add to a client’s impression of the professionalism of your work).

13. David Airey :: Creative Design ::, on July 10th, 2007 said:
    Nice work, Shonnie.

    Ties in well with your colour scheme (and surname).

    Damien,

    Thanks buddy. Keep me in mind when you get that blog only gig.

    Lauren,

    How’s the blog coming along? You’ll soon get used to the idea that blog tweaks are continuous (if you’re anything like me).

14. LaurenMarie, on July 10th, 2007 said:

    How funny, I’ve just been emailing Tara about that! I’m tweaking my colors right now and having difficulties finding every little place where the bg color is defined. I’m not sure what’s going on and I’m a pretty savvy web designer. There are many, many styles defined in the CSS file (and maybe some are superfluous?).

    My goal is to have the tweaks done by this weekend and then to outline and write at least a few articles. I want to be live in two weeks, but don’t hold me to it! Maybe publicizing my goal will make me stick to it :) Thanks for your interest!

    AH!! Just got it. The designer used a BG image instead of a color!

15. Brown Baron, on July 10th, 2007 said:

    This is a great way to add a little more personalization to WordPress. I’m going to try this out for sure.

16. Single Grain -- San Diego SEO, on July 10th, 2007 said:

    Thanks for the great tips David. I definitely must try this.

17. David Airey :: Creative Design ::, on July 10th, 2007 said:
    Lauren,

    Great news. I’m looking forward to reading your first blog in two weeks from now, and not a day later. ;)

    There could be some superfluous lines of code within my CSS file, following all the tweaks, but my loading time isn’t bad so it’s not a priority now. Something I should look at though.

    Baron, Sujan, you’re more than welcome.

18. Randa Clay, on July 10th, 2007 said:

    Thanks for sharing this tweak David- I had no idea you could change the login page. It is definitely the small things like this that can set a designer apart from the rest.
    Lauren’s finally starting a blog! That’s great. She’ll have instant readership as she seems to have already made lots of friends online.

19. LaurenMarie, on July 10th, 2007 said:

    Haha, thanks Randa! It seems there are quite a few people interested in seeing my blog. I hope I won’t disappoint!

20. Bret, on July 11th, 2007 said:

    David, that is fantastic before and after shot of the WordPress login screen. Unfortunately now that I’ve seen it, I want to do it also. Curse you David….you’ve just added another thing to my very long to-do list. :)

21. J David, on July 11th, 2007 said:

    This is such a cool customization! Thanks for sharing!

22. David Airey :: Creative Design ::, on July 11th, 2007 said:
    Randa,

    I too think that Lauren will have an immediate readership. She’s been great at commenting on other blogs (something I didn’t do for a while even after I launched my blog).

    Bret, J David,

    Glad you like. If you do similarly I’d love to check out your login pages.

23. Terinea Weblog, on July 11th, 2007 said:

    Ah great tip, just starting on WordPress project for a new client this week.
    Jamie

24. Michael, on July 11th, 2007 said:

    Wow i did’nt know you could change the wordpress login, I am doing to have to change mine. Thanks for posting.

25. goldcoaster, on July 12th, 2007 said:

    Very good and I guess if you have many blogs you instantly know which one you are logging into, but , really, is it needed seeing viewers would not see this screen normally?

26. Jermayn Parker, on July 12th, 2007 said:

    I have yet done this but have created a few websites for clients so I must do this from now on.

    As you say a small thing but it is usually the small details that make the difference, as it makes you look that little bit more professional.
    Do you also change the admin WP logo as well???

27. David Airey :: Creative Design ::, on July 12th, 2007 said:
    Jamie,

    I’d love to see your project when it’s complete.

    Michael,

    You’re very welcome.

    goldcoaster,

    The point is that your clients see it when they login to the blog you’ve set up for them.

    If you’re launching a WordPress blog for a client I’d highly recommend making this small, yet important, inclusion.

28. David Airey :: Creative Design ::, on July 12th, 2007 said:
    Good point, Jermayn.

    The WordPress logo that sits at the bottom of every admin screen can be found at this location:

    wp-admin/images/wordpress-logo.png

    It also links through to the WordPress website so you might like to change the link too.

29. Jermayn Parker, on July 12th, 2007 said:

    I think all these customisations would be helpful and keep the identity going.

    I have seen one website use adwords in their admin section, please no one do that :(

30. bret, on July 12th, 2007 said:

    Well, I did it. I changed the GIF images that create the admin login for my site — thanks to David. Not anything to radical. I decided to just maintain the title text and font style from my banner image so things were consistent. Thanks for the tip David.

31. David Airey :: Creative Design ::, on July 12th, 2007 said:
    Good on you, Bret.

    Your link leads to a 404 error page, but glad you found the tip of use.

32. Leah Maclean, on July 14th, 2007 said:

    Thanks for the heads-up on this David. Now I just need to find the tips to remove all the extra information (Wordpress announcements and the like) in the Dashboard that just seems to confuse clients.

33. David Airey :: Creative Design ::, on July 16th, 2007 said:
    Hi Leah,

    Let me know if you succeed. That’s a good idea for client projects.

34. Terry Ng, on July 17th, 2007 said:

    Great tip David. I’ve been doing this for awhile on Kineda: http://www.kineda.com/wp-login.php

35. Nathan Chapman, on July 18th, 2007 said:

    This is quite a good idea. I thank you for the tip. You Can see it in action Over at Pixl Design.

    I do however have one small thing. The Logo on the login page, so you think that it, or the logo on the home page of Pixl Design is better, as i cannot make up my mind.

    Thanks again.

36. phanthomas, on July 18th, 2007 said:

    Great idea and just too simple to have that idea on your own - thanks for teaching us, David!

    You can see my version up at Symbian60.mobi

37. David Airey :: Creative Design ::, on July 18th, 2007 said:
    Thanks for posting your examples. Always good to see how others are getting on.
38. Capitano Uncino, on July 18th, 2007 said:

    Personalizzare il login di WordPress…

    Sul suo blog, David Airey riprende un interessante articolo apparso qualche tempo fa sul blog di Ayush Saran, nel quale si analizza un aspetto poco noto di WordPress, ovvero la possibilità di personalizzare la schermata di login del proprio blog.
    …

39. Uncino, on July 18th, 2007 said:

    Very nice idea :)
    My version is available at my blog: Capitano Uncino

40. Thomas, on July 19th, 2007 said:

    Where is the plugin version? :)

41. Tilpas login-siden « WordPress Tips, on July 19th, 2007 said:

    [...] Airey har på sin blog skrevet om hvordan man tilpasser login-billedet. Det gøres ved at rette i billedfilerne login-bkg-tile.gif og login-bkg-bottom.gif, der ligger i [...]

42. Jermayn Parker, on July 23rd, 2007 said:

    any idea on how to get the news and events from dashboard off???

43. Wordpress tips and tricks - custom login page » Binary Moon » The home of Ben Gillbanks, on July 25th, 2007 said:

    [...] write this post because of a 9rules note I started recently. David Airey beat me to the punch with his own version but here is mine at [...]

44. Nonimage, on July 26th, 2007 said:

    As you may have noticed from the trackback above, Binary Moon now has a plugin version (so your changes don’t get overwritten when you upgrade) and a .psd template to make editing the images easier. Thanks for giving me the inspiration to do something I have been meaning to do for a long time.

45. David Airey :: Graphic Designer, on July 26th, 2007 said:
    Jermayn,

    I’m not sure about the news and events, but it’d be worth looking into.

    Andy,

    Thanks for commenting. I’ll be mentioning Ben’s blog article pretty soon. His plugin is a great idea.

46. Travis McCrea, on August 3rd, 2007 said:

    I modded mine to give it a bubble look.. nothing to fancy

47. David Airey :: Graphic Designer, on August 3rd, 2007 said:
    I checked yours out, Travis. Nice job.
48. Leonid Mamchenkov, on August 12th, 2007 said:

    Hi,

    good tip. Thanks for sharing.

    I don’t know if the trackback will reach you properly, so just in case I’ll leave the link here as well. I wrote a post, which extends your tip a bit. - “Having fun with WordPress login. Box or not.“.

49. David Airey :: Graphic Designer, on August 12th, 2007 said:
    Leonid,

    You’re very welcome. I’ve visited your blog and left a comment.

50. Nic, on August 14th, 2007 said:

    I just found this post, great stuff. Here’s my EG.

51. David Airey :: Graphic Designer, on August 14th, 2007 said:
    Thanks Nic, I like your customised version.
52. Nic, on August 14th, 2007 said:

    Thanks David, great blog, and thanks for visiting my blogs. Much appreciated!!

53. Jermayn Parker, on September 3rd, 2007 said:

    Finally got around to do a customised login screen for WP

    http://www.phillipwrayracing.com/index/wp-login.php

54. David Airey :: Graphic Designer, on September 3rd, 2007 said:
    Nice job, Jermayn. Keep it up!
55. Eric Novak, on November 5th, 2007 said:

    I just stumbled on your site. Here is what I did with mine, although I didn’t use your tutorial. ;)

    http://www.ericnovak.com/wp-admin

56. David Airey, on November 5th, 2007 said:
    Good on you, Eric. I’d not have had any idea how to do this if it weren’t for Ayush.
57. Jacob Cass, on November 29th, 2007 said:

    Hey,

    Another useful tip from your pages… I redesigned mine too…

    http://justcreativedesign.com/wp-login.php

    :) Cheers.

58. Harris, on November 29th, 2007 said:

    How about the logins that are just a white box? Mine for example doesn’t have any login.bkg image.

    Any suggestions?

59. johno, on December 11th, 2007 said:

    Dvid, what happened to your customized login? Thanks for the tipe; I’ve just done the same.

60. David Airey, on December 23rd, 2007 said:
    Great job, Jacob.

    Harris,

    You could always lift that image from the original WP download.

    Johno,

    Mine was reverted to the original after my last upgrade. Should’ve used Ben’s (Binary Moon) plugin. ;)

61. Haris, on January 19th, 2008 said:

    Hello David,

    I have released more flexible version of customizing wordpress login and registration. These are template files that can be fully customized without touching the core file (wp-login.php).

    You should give it a whirl!

    Read about it at my blog.

    Haris’s last blog post..Wordpress login and registration templates

62. the constant skeptic, on January 29th, 2008 said:

    great tip, I did this awhile ago, once I hit 2 years on my blog actually… thanks for explaining how to do this though.

    the constant skeptic’s last blog post..Quote of the Day - Emerson on Skeptics

63. Nasko, on February 15th, 2008 said:

    Nice post :) Well Ive designed my own wordpress login. Address above.

    Tell me what ya think? :D

    Regards:D

64. Tim Kissane, on February 28th, 2008 said:

    Great tips and fine examples (from the ones that worked). Thanks David! Thought I’d leave mine here, too. Click my name (or go to http://timkissane.com/) and choose login. Peace.

    Tim Kissane’s last blog post..Why I Use Opera

65. Jesse, on February 29th, 2008 said:

    That’s a nice little touch there. I’m definitely going to adjust mine too when I finish my theme.

    Did you remove you’re custom one David? It’s not displaying for me.

    Jesse’s last blog post..A pretty good css reference

66. David Airey, on March 6th, 2008 said:
    Hi Jesse,

    I didn’t update mine after a new WordPress install. Ben at BinaryMoon created a plugin that would keep your new design after a WP upgrade, if that’s of use?

    For me, it’s less important, but I’d certainly keep it on a client blog.

67. Stefson, on March 16th, 2008 said:

    Nice. Just did that for a site of mine.
    Was searching for a plugin, but this is a lot easier.

    Thx :)

    Stefson’s last blog post..Ramblings and random internet goodies

68. Mike, on March 17th, 2008 said:

    Yep, Stefson is right, why do you need an extra plug-in for something so simple as changing a couple of files? Hard code it and save bandwidth and server resources.

    Mike’s last blog post..F1 2008 Season Is Go!

69. David Airey, on March 17th, 2008 said:
    Stefan,

    No worries mate.

    Mike,

    The less plugins the better, I agree.

70. Amor, on March 26th, 2008 said:

    hi! I’m so glad to find your blog. I’ve been wanting to change WP login but I didn’t know what to do and didn’t know it’s possible until I read your entry. Thank you for this very useful post David!

    Because of your post I have customized my hometown’s login page http://www.sibale.amorfrancis.com/wp-admin

    :)

    Amor’s last blog post..Technorati Authority Explode

71. Aaron Harding, on March 29th, 2008 said:

    Hi David, thanks for that. It’s something I’ve seriously overlooked when building my wordpress themes.

72. Maurício "Maujor" Silva, on June 5th, 2008 said:

    Hi David,
    I have customized the login page for a client Blog.
    http://www.lajedo.com.br/blog/wp-admin
    Greetings from Brazil.

73. David Airey, on June 5th, 2008 said:
    Amor, Mauricio,

    Nice work guys.

    Aaron,

    You’re very welcome.

What are your thoughts?

Simply fill in the form below. All comments are moderated so you may experience a short delay before your comment appears. Comments should be respectful of other voices in the discussion. I reserve the right to edit or delete comments at my discretion.