WHAT IS A WEBSITE RESKIN AND WHEN YOU NEED ONE?

A website that looked cutting-edge a few years ago can start to feel tired surprisingly quickly. Design trends move on, brand styles evolve, and what once felt modern can soon appear dated.

When you’re looking to improve your website, you’ll usually be weighing up three main options: a reskin, a refresh, or a full website redesign.

Each offers a different level of change, catering to different goals, timescales, and budgets.

In this blog, we’re focusing on reskinning a website, exploring when it’s the right choice, what’s typically involved, and how it can give your site a new look without the commitment of a full overhaul.

WHAT IS A WEBSITE RESKIN?

A website reskin is the process of updating your site’s design elements without changing its core structure or functionality.

It’s a cost-effective and efficient way to breathe new life into a site that still works well but is starting to look outdated. Unlike a full rebuild, a reskin keeps your existing structure and content in place, focusing instead on visual updates and minor layout tweaks.

It’s often used as a short-term solution to improve a website’s look and feel, and can be useful for showcasing a recent rebrand, acting as a stepping stone towards a full redesign in the future.

WHAT’S TYPICALLY INCLUDED IN A REFRESH

A website refresh generally covers key updates across content, design, and user experience, helping your site feel more modern and functional.

Typical refreshes include:

• Reviewing and improving accessibility, layout, and responsiveness
• Updating key pages with new content, images, or calls-to-action
• Redesigning pages to better support content and conversion goals
• Refining navigation for a smoother user journey
• Introducing new sections or components where needed
• Enhancing visual design for consistency and alignment with updated branding
• Light performance improvements, such as optimising page load speed

WHAT DOES A WEBSITE RESKIN INCLUDE?

While the exact scope will vary depending on your site’s needs, a typical website reskin focuses on visual updates and small design improvements rather than structural changes.

Common elements include:

• Ensuring visual and branding consistency across all pages
• Updating colours, fonts, and imagery
• Making minor layout tweaks to improve visual appeal
• Adjusting spacing, font sizes, and contrast for accessibility
• Swapping out basic content and images

WHO IS IT FOR?

A website reskin is best suited to businesses making minor brand updates or those wanting to give their site a visual lift without committing to the cost of a full rebuild.

It’s particularly useful for organisations working with shorter timescales or tighter budgets, and for websites that remain structurally sound but are beginning to look dated in design.

If the existing site functions well, is mobile-friendly, and offers a good user experience, a reskin can provide a quick and effective update.

Explore the key signs your website needs updating in our recent blog.

THE KEY BENEFITS OF A WEBSITE RESKIN

The main advantage of a website reskin is that it delivers a fresh, modern look with minimal disruption.

Because the site’s structure remains intact, existing SEO rankings are preserved while the design is brought in line with current branding.

It’s a faster process than a full redevelopment, often taking weeks rather than months, and it avoids the higher costs associated with a complete rebuild.

By focusing on design changes rather than starting from scratch, a reskin allows businesses to quickly adapt their online presence to match evolving branding or market trends.

This makes it an efficient way to improve user perception, maintain audience engagement, and ensure your site remains visually competitive.

WHAT DOESN’T A WEBSITE RESKIN COVER

While a reskin is a great way to refresh the visual design of a website, it does have limitations.

A reskin won’t improve the underlying performance of your site, such as loading speed or efficiency, nor will it add new features or functionality.

It also won’t fix structural issues, outdated code, or mobile responsiveness problems, these require a more in-depth website refresh or redesign.

Essentially, a reskin focuses purely on aesthetics and branding, so if your site is struggling with usability, navigation, or technical performance, a full redesign may be necessary to address these deeper issues.

CAN I RESKIN A WEBSITE THEME?

For businesses using a pre-built theme, it’s often possible to achieve a reskin without starting from scratch. Whether your website is built on WordPress, Shopify, or another CMS, a reskin can involve adjusting theme settings, updating fonts and imagery, and applying small CSS tweaks to refresh the overall look.

However, the extent of the changes depends on the flexibility of your existing theme, some themes allow extensive customisation, while others are more restrictive.

As a result, the visual update may be more modest than a full rebuild or theme replacement, but it can still give your site a noticeably fresher appearance with minimal disruption.

READY TO REFRESH YOUR WEBSITE?

As a leading brand development agency our designers work in collaboration with our website developers on every step of the reskin process.

We start by agreeing on key visual updates, such as colours, fonts, imagery, and accessibility tweaks.

These changes are then applied on a staging site, giving you the chance to review before everything goes live, while we also ensure all compliance elements are up to date. Contact us today to give your website a polished, refreshed look that reflects your brand.

Email info@edge-creative.com or call us on 0121 355 8092.