Building a Design System with Global Colors & Typography Variables in Elementor

How to Build a Design System with Global Colors and Typography Variables in Elementor

Maintaining visual consistency across a website can be challenging — especially as your design grows in complexity. Fortunately, Elementor’s Global Colors and Typography Variables make it easy to keep your design system organized and consistent. In this post, you’ll learn how to create, manage, and apply global design tokens in Elementor to save time and simplify updates.

What Are Global Colors and Typography Variables?

Global Colors and Typography Variables are reusable design settings you can define once and use throughout your entire site. Instead of setting colors and fonts manually for every widget or section, you can assign global variables — making it simple to change your entire site’s look with just a few clicks.

• Global Colors: Define your brand’s palette (Primary, Secondary, Accent, etc.) and apply them site-wide.
• Typography Variables: Create text styles (Headings, Body, Buttons) that you can reuse anywhere.

Why Use a Design System?

Using variables gives you full control and consistency. Imagine needing to change your brand’s primary color — without global settings, you’d have to manually update dozens of pages. With variables, you just change one value, and Elementor updates every instance automatically.

• Keep a unified visual identity
• Save hours when redesigning or rebranding
• Make collaboration easier across team members

Setting Up Global Colors

Step 1: Access the Site Settings Panel

From your WordPress dashboard, open any page with Elementor. Click the hamburger menu (☰) at the top-left corner and select Site Settings → Design System → Global Colors.

Step 2: Add and Name Your Colors

You’ll see default color slots like Primary, Secondary, Text, and Accent. Click the “+” icon to add custom colors, such as Brand Blue or CTA Red. Give each one a descriptive name.

Step 3: Apply Colors Across Widgets

When editing widgets (like Buttons, Headings, or Icons), you can select from your saved global colors in the color picker. This ensures your colors stay consistent across every element on your site.

Step 4: Update Once — Apply Everywhere

If you later change your brand palette, just return to Global Colors, modify one color, and Elementor will automatically apply the change everywhere that color is used. Simple, powerful, and efficient.

Setting Up Typography Variables

Step 1: Open Global Fonts

Inside the same Site Settings menu, navigate to Design System → Global Fonts.

Step 2: Define Text Styles

By default, Elementor includes predefined roles like Primary Headline, Secondary Headline, Text, and Accent Text. You can customize each with your chosen font family, size, weight, line height, and spacing.

Step 3: Apply to Elements

When editing a widget, click the typography dropdown and select one of your saved styles. This helps you maintain consistent headings and text formatting across all pages.

Example: Quick Rebrand in Seconds

Let’s say you’ve built a website for a client using a blue color palette. Later, they decide to switch to green. Without global variables, you’d have to manually update every section. With Elementor’s design system:

1. Open Site Settings → Global Colors
2. Change the blue (#0073e6) to green (#0f9d58)
3. Click “Update”

Every button, headline, and background automatically updates across the entire site — no manual edits required.

Pro Tip: Combine Variables with Custom CSS

For advanced users, you can reference variables directly inside Elementor’s Custom CSS field. For example:

selector {
  color: var(--e-global-color-primary);
  font-family: var(--e-global-typography-primary-font-family);
}

This is particularly useful if you’re writing custom animations, transitions, or CSS layouts that depend on your global theme values.

Best Practices for a Scalable Design System

• Limit your color palette to 4–6 core colors for consistency.
• Use descriptive names (e.g., “Accent-CTA” instead of “Red1”).
• Define heading hierarchies clearly (H1–H6) in Global Fonts.
• Test readability and contrast for accessibility compliance (WCAG AA+).

Wrapping Up

Elementor’s Global Colors and Typography Variables help you work smarter, not harder. They’re essential tools for maintaining design consistency and speeding up workflows — especially for agencies and freelancers managing multiple websites.

Start using variables today to future-proof your designs, simplify rebranding, and keep every page pixel-perfect.

In the next article, we’ll explore the differences between Elementor Free and Pro — and when upgrading actually makes sense.