Themes & Presentation

While passport templates determine what information appears in a Digital Product Passport, themes determine how that information is presented visually. Themes are the presentation layer — they control layout, typography, colour application, section structure, and the overall look and feel of the consumer-facing passport experience.

What Is a Theme?

A theme is a curated visual design system that transforms structured passport data into a polished, branded consumer experience. Each theme defines:

• Layout and structure — how content blocks are arranged on the page
• Typography — heading styles, body text treatment, and visual hierarchy
• Colour application — how the brand’s colours are applied to headers, accents, sections, and backgrounds
• Section presentation — how each content category (materials, sustainability, compliance, etc.) is visually rendered
• Responsive behaviour — how the passport adapts across mobile, tablet, and desktop screens
• Visual details — icons, section dividers, card styles, and micro-interactions

Themes are professionally designed and curated by tieback to ensure a high-quality consumer experience that meets enterprise brand standards.

Brand-Level Theme Assignment

Each brand has a default theme that governs how its passports are presented. The default theme is applied automatically to all passport rendering for that brand.

In the current model:

• every brand is assigned a default theme
• the default theme applies to all products under the brand
• themes respect the brand’s configured visual identity (logo, primary colour, secondary colour)

The result is a passport that looks and feels like a natural extension of the brand’s digital presence — not a generic template.

How Themes and Templates Work Together

Themes and templates are complementary but independent:

The theme receives only the data that the template permits. If a template excludes sustainability fields, the theme will not render a sustainability section — regardless of whether the product record contains that data.

This means:

• Templates protect content boundaries — themes cannot display data that the template has excluded
• Themes enhance presentation — within the permitted content, themes provide the visual polish and branded experience
• Both layers can evolve independently — a brand can adjust its theme without affecting content, and vice versa

Curated Theme Quality

tieback themes are curated — they are designed, tested, and maintained by the platform team to ensure:

• Enterprise-grade visual quality — professional typography, thoughtful spacing, considered colour application
• Mobile-first responsiveness — optimised for the smartphone scanning context that most consumers use
• Accessibility — readable contrast ratios, semantic structure, and accessible interaction patterns
• Brand consistency — faithful application of the brand’s visual identity across all sections and states
• Regulatory clarity — clear, structured presentation of compliance and regulatory information

Themes are not custom HTML/CSS that brands write themselves. They are professionally maintained presentation systems that brands select and configure through their brand settings.

Section Visibility

Themes intelligently handle content completeness. A section is displayed only when it contains at least one populated field from the template’s configuration. If all fields within a content category are empty or excluded by the template, the entire section is hidden automatically.

This means:

• no empty sections appear in the consumer experience
• brands do not need to manually hide sections — the system handles this automatically
• the passport always presents a clean, complete-looking experience regardless of data coverage

Current Theme

The current default theme — designed for editorial clarity and brand expression — provides:

• a branded header with logo and product identity
• structured content sections with clear visual hierarchy
• material composition breakdowns
• sustainability and environmental data presentation
• compliance and certification displays
• care and usage guidance
• provenance and supply chain information
• a professional footer with verification context

Related Docs

• Passports Overview
• Content & Templates
• Consumer Experience
• Brand Setup & Readiness
• Publication Lifecycle