Work
As a council digital team member
I would like to reuse a microsite theme created by us or another council
So that we can ensure quality and consistency, and not have to start from scratch
A number of beautifully designed LGD Microsites have been launched by councils across the UK. Many other councils would love to use these designs as a starting point for their own microsites — adjusting colours, fonts, and other variables to match their brand — without paying to reinvent the wheel each time.
We would like to build a Microsites Theme Exporter: it would allow anyone with appropriate permissions to export a complete copy of an existing theme, with any CSS variable settings from the microsite UI merged in, ready to be used as a standalone starting point.
Once shared, the exported theme becomes the sole responsibility of its new owners. No further effort or involvement is required from the council that originally donated it.
We also have a LocalGov Microsites Themes project on Drupal.org. Where exported themes are sufficiently generic — free of council-specific branding, proprietary assets, or restricted content — they can be contributed to this project, giving the wider LGD community an array of high-quality themes to use as a starting point.
How the exporter could work
We think there are three steps:
- Copy: The entire source theme — CSS, JS, PHP, templates, and all other theme files — is copied into a new theme folder under a new name.
- Merge: Any CSS variable settings that have been configured via the microsite UI are extracted and merged into the copied theme, overwriting or supplementing the variables.css file as appropriate. Duplicate declarations are resolved, with UI-set values taking precedence.
- Export: The resulting theme is packaged (e.g. as a .zip file) and made available for download and sharing
The exported theme would be a complete, self-contained copy including the following:
- All theme files: CSS, JS, PHP, templates, and any other files that make up the source theme
- Merged CSS variables: Any design tokens (colours, fonts, spacing, etc.) set via the microsite UI, merged into variables.css
- Theme metadata: Name, description, author, source council (optional), and the LGD Microsites version the source theme was built against
There would be no ongoing link to the source theme — once exported, it is independently maintained by whoever receives it. There is no upgrade path between the source and the exported copy; this is by design.
Estimated time/ cost
This project will be built by The Confident (LGD front-end lead, Mark Conroy). His estimated cost is £9,800 (£700 per day x 14 days)
For this project we also need to include 20% extra for LGD core team support.
Total cost = approx £12,000 + VAT
This cost may vary if councils introduce new needs or we uncover unforeseen complexities. We'll have a detailed architectural conversation before the work starts to migitate this as far as possible.
Fund this work
If you’re interested, please contact Will.