---
title: WordPress theme style variations
description: Style variations in WordPress 6.0 allow for quick design changes within a single theme, enhancing customization while maintaining unique aesthetics.
doc_version: current
last_updated: '2026-03-31T09:55:40.000Z'
date: '2022-05-25T09:52:21.000Z'
author: Rich Tabor
summary: Style variations in WordPress 6.0 allow for quick design changes within a single theme, enhancing customization while maintaining unique aesthetics.
tags:
  - Design
  - Themes
  - WordPress
published: true
type: blog
url: /wordpress-style-variations
canonical: https://richtabor.com/wordpress-style-variations
id: 2310
---

Style variations are a new feature of block themes, recently landing in WordPress 6.0. They’re just one part of [the new era of WordPress theming](/a-new-era/) that we’re looking at, with the introduction of Full Site Editing. These style variations are alternate design pre-sets for a theme, enabling you to quickly apply a new look and feel to your site—all within a single theme. Too good to be true? Actually, no.

Because block themes are configured with a theme.json specification, there’s a _semi_\-standardized approach to styling a WordPress block theme — and even setting up the editing experience of a site. I say “_semi-standardized_” because there are some nuances block themes are working out to improve standardization, particularly around [colors](/standardizing-theme-json-colors/) and [fonts](/standardizing-theme-json-font-sizes/). Carolina Nymark has conducted [an analysis](https://twitter.com/carolinapoena/status/1525352306576961536?s=21&t=VTvu3Cs_M3XNMRsOFoDAKg) of how block themes are currently working these out — really interesting. This doesn’t mean themes will start looking the same. Nor does it force a [CSS Zen Garden](http://www.csszengarden.com) type approach to theming.

Just take a look at [Twenty Twenty Two](https://wordpress.org/themes/twentytwentytwo/), [Skatepark](https://wordpress.org/themes/skatepark/), or my theme [Wabi](/wabi/)—they have very different looks, although they are each theme.json driven. Just because a method of defining styles is standardized, doesn’t mean the styles themselves are.

![](https://i0.wp.com/rich.blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/c6f0c-block-themes.jpg?ssl=1&resize=2400%2C1600)

_Block themes available on [WordPress.org](https://wordpress.org/themes/tags/full-site-editing/)_

## Adding style variations

Before we dive full-on in adding style variants, we need to know how they work. When a style variant is applied to the site, its JSON is merged with the top-level theme.json file. This means that style variants only need to define the deviant objects from the theme’s theme.json file — not every specification. Adding variants is as easy as including a JSON file within a theme’s `/styles/` top-level directory. Here’s how I added four style variants to Wabi:

![](https://i0.wp.com/rich.blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/80349-wabi-styles.png?ssl=1&resize=1600%2C1000)

_Adding new styles within the top-level /styles/ directory of a theme_

It’s actually rather easy to add new styles. If you’d like to dive into Wabi’s styles, check them out on [Github](https://github.com/richtabor/wabi/tree/main/styles).

## Style variations you can try today

The release of WordPress 6.0 updated [Twenty Twenty Two](https://wordpress.org/themes/twentytwentytwo/) with three style variations: Swiss, Pink and Blue:

![](https://i0.wp.com/rich.blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/a238a-styles-3.png?ssl=1&resize=1600%2C1000)

![](https://i0.wp.com/rich.blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/ad0b8-styles-2.png?ssl=1&resize=1600%2C1000)

![](https://i0.wp.com/rich.blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/8251f-styles-1.png?ssl=1&resize=1600%2C1000)

And my theme [Wabi](/wabi/) has three style variations as well: Dark, Aoi, Pinku. Combined with the accent color functionality I added, you can have quite few looks, all from the one theme:

![](https://i0.wp.com/rich.blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/099d2-wabi-block-theme-1.jpg?ssl=1&resize=2400%2C1600)

_Style variations, as seen in the [Wabi WordPress theme](/wabi/)_

## A future of styles

At the [State of the Word 2021](https://wordpress.org/news/2021/12/highlights-from-state-of-the-word-2021/), I asked [Matt Mullenweg](https://ma.tt/about/) if we may see a directory of styles one day. A place to share and download alternate theme.json files for a site.

I don’t know that we’ll see that exactly, but themes are certainly moving in that direction. If a theme is defined by a [JSON spec](/full-site-editing/), and a style is an alternate JSON spec, aren’t style variants essentially mini-themes? If it weren’t for the inheritance of the theme’s theme.json file, they’d be full on separate “themes”. So if block themes are designed to be so interchangeable, perhaps we should have a separate directory, or classification, on the WordPress Themes Directory — at least.

## Sitemap

[Full site index](/sitemap.md)