Zonefall
An original battle-royale gaming theme for SMF 2.1: a storm-lit hero header with a shrinking safe-zone ring, glowing board cards, player cards with levels and four colour variants.
Get the free theme: ZonefallFree SMF theme
Cleo
A light, calm SMF 2.1 theme: a clean white content panel on a slate-blue frame, with a dark top bar and a tabbed main menu.
- Free download
- For SMF 2.1, tested on 2.1.7
- Version 1.0.0
- MIT licence
About Cleo
Cleo is a light theme for Simple Machines Forum 2.1. Your boards and posts sit on a clean, rounded white panel inside a slate-blue frame, with a dark utility bar and a tabbed main menu across the top. The category bars pick up the same slate blue, so the forum looks tidy and calm without going dark.
It keeps the structure of SMF 2.1.7's own default theme, so pages lay out the way SMF intends and the mobile layout works on phones straight away. Every colour comes from a set of named design tokens at the top of the stylesheet, so you can adjust the palette without touching the rest of the theme.
Cleo's own work is MIT-licensed; the parts derived from SMF's default theme stay under the SMF licence.
- Light and calm White content on a slate-blue frame, with slate category bars and a flat set of buttons.
- Easy to recolour Every colour is a named design token in one block at the top of the stylesheet.
- A readable search box The search box on the dark bar uses higher-contrast text that meets WCAG AA.
- Follows SMF 2.1.7 The stylesheet keeps the default theme's structure, so phones get SMF's responsive layout and future SMF updates are easy to compare.
Colours
#2e4b5b#1c2d37#ffffff#f4f7f9#585858
Install it in a couple of minutes
You need admin access to your forum. Keep the .zip as it is: SMF installs it from the archive.
- Open Themes and Layout. In your forum go to Admin, then Configuration, then Themes and Layout, and open the Manage and Install tab.
- Install from the archive. Under the option to install a new theme from an archive, choose the Cleo .zip and upload it.
- Make it the default. Still on Manage and Install, set the overall forum default to Cleo and save.
The full guide, with troubleshooting
Need somewhere to host your SMF forum? Run it on Traxio hosting: your first month is free, then it’s £0.99 a month. The themes are free whether you host with us or not. Forum hosting
More free SMF themes
Dark Meridian
A tactical military gaming theme for SMF 2.1: a command-centre board index with a radar sweep and live stats, boards as mission cards, posts as operator cards and three colour variants.
Get the free theme: Dark Meridian
Smush
A near-black, low-key SMF 2.1 theme: quiet greys, thin dividers, outlined chat icons and a wide-spaced silver forum title.
Get the free theme: Smush