Discord Life Hacks — Stylized Discord Servers
Ever look at your Discord server and think to yourself, “This looks so boring!”? I know I have! That’s why I made the decision to take matters into my own hands and learn how I can make my server look jazzed up and stylish. In this article I’ll go over all the unique ways I learned to style my server using Unicode fonts and emojis, text formatting, and code blocks to change text colors.
Disclaimer: Some text formatting will not appear correctly on the mobile version of Discord. Certain Unicode fonts might appear as squares because the phone software does not support them. When using these fonts, ask the members of your server to make sure that they see what you want them to.
Unicode Fonts and Emojis
Definition of Unicode — an international encoding standard for use with different languages and scripts, by which each letter, digit, or symbol is assigned a unique numeric value that applies across different platforms and programs.
With Unicode, you can add standard emojis to channel names and use some unique fonts to make your server stand out. You can also use it in normal text to make things like server information look more interesting. Discord already has native support for Unicode in channel and category names which we’ll be making good use of in this section!
Adding Emoji Magic
Adding emojis to the names of channels and categories is a fun way to make them look more interesting. They have the added benefit of providing members a visual representation of what the channels are for. However, you can only use the standard Discord emojis because these are all Unicode-based, unlike the custom emojis we upload to our servers.
For this article, I created a test server called “Style Server” which has all the default settings that come with a new server, including the base categories and channels. The first step for adding emojis to them is getting the Unicode form of the emoji. Luckily, Discord has an easy way to get this using just a text channel. The GIF below demonstrates how to do this.
As you can see, I found which emoji I wanted in the set of default emojis. I then added a backslash ( \ ) to the front of the emoji. When sending this message, it produced the Unicode version that I could then select and copy.
This method does not work on mobile. I recommend using a site that has all Unicode Emojis listed such as the Official Unicode site.
Now, I want to add a text bubble emoji to my #general channel to further show that it’s for text chat. This will help all members find this channel and know what it’s for while at the same time helping new members learn their way around the server! The GIF below demonstrates how I can achieve this.
I once again found the emoji I wanted and changed it into its Unicode form to copy. Then I went into the channel settings and pasted the emoji where I wanted it in the name (using CTRL + V). After saving the changes, my #general channel has the emoji in its name!
With Unicode emojis, you can make any channel or category more interesting and informative, but it doesn’t stop there.
Fanciful Fonts
Unicode fonts are great ways to use custom fonts to break some of the monotony of standard Discord fonts — especially when it comes to channel and category names. Furthermore, they allow you to use character sets for specific languages such as Japanese which is handy when your server is in a specific language.
An easy way to get some text in a Unicode font is to use a Unicode Text Converter or a Fancy Text Generator. Alternatively, if you want to use a specific language’s character set you can simply copy-paste those into Discord. Discord should support most character sets because non-English languages are the reason why Unicode was created. Unicode can also be produced by using any of the character codes available for it, but this will require a text editor such as Microsoft Word.
In my Style Server, I wanted to make the Text Channels category name really stand out with a big clear font! I used the Unicode Text Converter linked above to achieve this with the “Fullwidth” font option. The GIF below demonstrates this process.
You can use Unicode fonts and emojis in all kinds of ways to make your server look and feel a lot more interesting. The only drawback to using Unicode is that it can make mentioning channels more difficult. The best part about it is that it can also be used on your Server Name and Role Names, so you can really jazz things up in all kinds of ways!
To read more about Unicode, check out the Wikipedia Article.
Text Formatting
Discord provides a whole bunch of great ways to format text, but sometimes they can feel lackluster. When I first discovered how to make text bold, I was a bit shocked at how infrequently people used bold text in Discord. Since then, I have researched all the different methods of Text Formatting, and found interesting ways to use it alongside images to make my server rules and info channel stand out. My big walls of text don’t feel so horrible to read and write anymore! Discord has also increased the Text Formatting options available and made them much easier to use. Let’s have a closer look at these options.
- Bold — Add two star symbols (asterisks) on each side of your text (e.g. **Some Bold Text**); or, highlight the text and a formatting menu will pop up where you can click the B for bold.
- Italic — Add one star symbol or one underscore on each side of the text (e.g. *Some Italic Text* or _Some Italic Text_); or, highlight and a formatting menu will pop up where you can click the I for italic.
- Underline — Add two underscores on each side of the text (e.g. __Some Underlined Text__).
- Strikethrough — Add two tilde symbols on each side of the text (e.g. ~~Some Strikethrough Text~~); or, highlight the text and a formatting menu will pop up where you can click the S (S with a line through it).
- Quote — Add a closing angle bracket with a space in front of the text for a single line quote (e.g. > Some Quoted Text) or adding three closing angle brackets with a space in front of the text for a quote box (e.g. >>> Some Quoted Text Box). You can also highlight the text and a formatting menu will pop up where you can click the “ to make a quote block.
- Code Line — Add one grave accent (aka: a backtick) to each side of the text (e.g. `Some Code Line Text`); or, highlight the text and a formatting menu will pop where you can click the <> to place the text in a code line.
- Code Block — Add three grave accents on each side of your text (e.g. ```Some Code Block Text```). However, it is best to place your text and grave accents on separate lines which I will explain why later in the article.
You can also combine Text Formatting with images to mark sections and create interesting separators in a lot of text. To do this, you simply need to design your header or separator image (or get someone to do it for you if you can or wish too). When you have the image, send it and quickly follow with a message that is either a placeholder or the text you want under the image. This will create a nice seamless scrolling experience. The GIF Below demonstrates this.
As you can see, my text flows from the banner to the separator. I also used some formatting and emojis to enhance the text and make it pop! This will not always look the same to everyone who views the channel because some people might have their Discord set to compact mode. They may also view the channel from the mobile client which can alter how the images and text look. However, for most members this will create a slick, neat-looking information message while keeping an interesting sense of style.
Text Formatting has many possibilities to enhance your messages no matter what your intention might be. It’s all about testing it out, seeing what you like, and making sure that your members enjoy reading it. Furthermore, you could use a Discord bot that can send embedded messages for you. Combining embeds with Text Formatting can produce some amazing results and give your server a professional look.
A good couple places to check for bots is bots.gg and top.gg sites which both list bots which you can search by tag. We are not affiliated with these sites, but they are currently the de facto places to find bots.
Code Blocks
The final and most unique method to style your server is using Code Blocks. These are a type of Text Formatting that deserves its very own section as it has a function that none of the other Text Formatting options offer — changing the color of text.
Generally, Code Blocks are used to present a piece of programming code in text form. However, we’ll be using code blocks to style our text instead! Some text forums and applications (like Discord) offer adding a tag that will highlight the text according to the programming language it comes from. These tags are known as Highlight.js and you can use them in Discord to make text different colors within Code Blocks.
You do not need to know any programming to use Highlight.js as the community of the Discord Highlight.js Server have already done all the hard work and created a handy reference for us to use!
In the example below I will demonstrate how to make blue and yellow styled text using the md tag (which stands for Markdown).
As you can see, I have placed my grave accents on separate lines from my text.This is because Highlight.js tags will not work if the text follows right after the tag. The only downsides to using Code Blocks are that you need to add specific symbols or spacing to achieve the coloring, and that you cannot mix and match any color you want since you are limited by the tag you are using. However, some tags such as fix will change the color of all text in the Code Block without the need to add any symbols. Test out all the different ways you can color your text using the Highlight.js server linked above to guide you and find the best ones for you!
Disclaimer: Code Blocks will not display colors on the mobile versions of Discord.
Final Words
At first, styling your server might seem impossible with the lack of options Discord gives us.However, with the information in this article you can now easily achieve an exciting, interesting, and professional look!
Unicode fonts and emojis make your server categories stand out and your channels have visual representations of their intended use. Code Blocks make large pieces of text feel easier on the eyes by adding a bit of color to your server information channel. Creatively combining Text Formatting with images produces a beautiful layout that will make the text a lot more interesting. With these tools in hand, the only limitation now is your imagination!
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Our blog is sponsored by Statbot, the premier statistics and analytics Discord bot and dashboard for your community. It is an absolute must-have for any server that is serious about its growth and well-being. When a server has Statbot in it, you know it’s aiming to be the best of its kind! Statbot tracks member count, messages, minutes spent in voice, activity, and statuses. It offers many ways to view and use this data to help grow your community, such as, automatic role assignment according to users activity in your Discord server (A.K.A. Statroles), and channel counters that allow you to display all kinds of stats about your community to others as a channel (A.K.A. Statdocks). If you run a Discord server we highly recommend getting Statbot to help track your growth and augment your community.
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