Shopify Store Design Services: UX, Layout and Brand for New Stores
Our Shopify store design services are for brands building a new Shopify store who want the layout, navigation and look worked out before a line of code is written. You get a store structure customers can find their way around, page designs for every key template, a brand system that maps to Shopify theme settings, and clickable Figma prototypes your developers can build from without guessing.
Design is one stage of our wider Shopify store build service. It can run on its own if you have your own developers, or as the first phase of a full build with us.
What Shopify store design covers
Shopify store design is the UX and visual design of an online store before it is built: how the catalogue is organised, how customers move from the homepage to a product and on to checkout, and how every page looks on mobile and desktop. The output is a set of designs and prototypes that match how Shopify themes actually work, so they can be built as sections and blocks rather than one-off pages.
That last point is where many store designs go wrong. A layout that looks good as a static image can be expensive or impossible to build on Shopify if it ignores how templates, sections, collections and variants behave.
Why design has to fit how Shopify works
Shopify renders your store through templates. One product template usually serves hundreds of products, and one collection template serves every collection. A good design accounts for that:
- Product pages must still look right when a product has one image or twenty, two variants or fifty, a short description or a long one.
- Collection pages need to handle filters, sorting, empty states and very long product titles.
- Homepage and campaign content should be built from reusable sections your team can rearrange in the theme editor.
- Brand colours, fonts and button styles should become theme settings, so a seasonal change does not need a developer.
We design with those constraints in mind from the first wireframe. The result is a store that stays consistent as your catalogue grows.
What you receive
| Deliverable | What it contains | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Sitemap and navigation plan | Collection hierarchy, main menu, mega menu, footer and utility links | Customers find products in fewer clicks, and collection URLs are planned before launch |
| Wireframes | Low-fidelity mobile and desktop layouts for each key template | Agrees structure and priorities before visual detail |
| Brand system | Colour schemes, type scale, spacing, buttons, icons, imagery rules | Keeps every page consistent and maps to theme settings |
| High-fidelity page designs | Home, collection, product, cart drawer and cart page, search, content page, account pages | Shows exactly what will be built |
| Clickable Figma prototype | Linked mobile and desktop flows from landing to cart | Lets you test the journey before development |
| Section library and handoff notes | Each section with its settings, blocks, states and responsive behaviour | Developers build what was designed, without guessing |
Designing every part of the store
Information architecture and menus
We start with the catalogue, not the homepage. Using your product list and how customers search for your products, we group items into collections, decide which collections appear in the main menu, and plan filters based on the product attributes you actually have. A jewellery store with a few hundred products might need a simple menu by type and material. An apparel store with thousands of size and colour variants usually needs a mega menu, gender or category splits, and strong filtering. Both are designed around real data.
Homepage
The homepage has to explain what you sell and move people towards a collection quickly. We design it as a stack of sections: hero, featured collections, best sellers, proof, story and newsletter sign-up, each one reusable elsewhere.
Collection pages
Grid density, product card content (price, swatches, badges, ratings), filter placement on mobile, sort options and pagination or load-more behaviour are all decided here, together with space for collection intro copy that helps both customers and search.
Product pages
We design the product template around what your customers need to decide: image gallery, variant pickers, price and offer display, delivery and returns information, size guides and reviews. Conversion testing on a live product page is a separate job for our product page optimisation service. The copy inside the layout comes from our product description writers, and we design space for specs held in metafields so descriptions do not have to carry everything.
Cart drawer and cart page
We design the cart as part of the journey, with shipping thresholds, upsell slots, discount behaviour and express checkout buttons placed where they help rather than distract.
Content and campaign pages
About, FAQ, size guide, stockist and contact pages get their own templates. Campaign pages for ads and email are a different discipline with their own message-match rules, and we hand those to our Shopify landing page team when you need them.
Mobile-first layouts
Most store browsing happens on phones, so we design mobile first and expand to desktop. That affects everything from thumb-reachable add to cart buttons to how filters open and how long product titles wrap.
A brand system that becomes theme settings
Your brand system is designed to be built as Shopify theme settings rather than hard-coded styles. Colour schemes, font pairings, type scale, button styles, corner radius and spacing are defined once and applied through the theme editor. When you change a seasonal accent colour, it changes everywhere, and your team can do it without a developer.
Handoff to development
Every design is broken into sections and blocks, with notes on which settings each section needs, which content comes from metafields or metaobjects, and how each state looks (empty, sold out, on sale, loading). That handoff goes to our theme development team or to your own developers. Because the designs already follow Online Store 2.0 structure, build estimates are more accurate and fewer decisions are left to the developer.
Accessibility basics we design in
- Colour contrast checked for text, buttons and sale badges.
- Visible focus states for keyboard users.
- Tap targets sized for thumbs, with spacing between them.
- Form labels and error messages that are clear without relying on colour.
- Alt text guidance for product and lifestyle images.
This covers the basics. It is not a formal accessibility audit, and we will tell you if your market or customers need one.
Design problems we solve
| Problem | Likely cause | Our fix | What it moves |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customers cannot find products | Menu built around internal categories, not how people shop | Sitemap and menus rebuilt from product data and search terms | Collection page views per session, site search exits |
| Store looks different on every page | No shared brand system, styles added page by page | One set of colour schemes, type and components as theme settings | Brand consistency, build and edit time |
| Mobile product pages feel cramped | Desktop-first layout squeezed onto small screens | Mobile-first product template with prioritised content | Mobile add-to-cart rate |
| Designs cost more to build than planned | Layouts ignore sections, templates and variants | Designs specified as sections and blocks with all states | Build cost and timeline accuracy |
How a design project runs
1. Audit and baseline
We review your product data, brand assets, competitor stores and, if you already sell elsewhere, your analytics and search queries. You get a written summary of what the design needs to solve.
2. Strategy and scope
We agree the templates to design, the number of revision rounds, and whether development follows. The scope and fixed fee are set before any design work starts.
3. Build and fix
Wireframes first, then brand system, then high-fidelity pages and the prototype. You review each stage in Figma and approve it before the next begins.
4. Launch and track
Designs are handed off as a section library. If we also build the store, the approved designs go into development on an unpublished theme. Once the store is trading, its analytics show whether the layout choices hold up.
Tools we design with
Figma for wireframes, design systems and prototypes; FigJam for sitemap workshops; the Shopify theme editor to check how settings will behave; and your analytics and Search Console data where a store already exists.
When this is the right service
- You are launching a new Shopify store and want a distinctive design.
- You are moving to Shopify from another platform and want to design the new store properly rather than copy the old one. Moving a live store with its rankings intact is handled by our redesign and replatforming service.
- You run on Shopify Plus and need designs for B2B, expansion stores or a branded checkout, which our Shopify Plus developers then build.
- You have in-house developers and need design and a clear handoff.
If your needs are standard and time matters more than originality, a ready-made theme from our marketplace of fixed-price Shopify themes may be the better choice.
How pricing works
Store design is quoted as a fixed project fee after a discovery call. The fee depends on the number of templates, the size of the catalogue, whether you have an existing brand identity, and whether development follows. When design and build are combined, they are scoped together. Request a store design quote.
Frequently asked questions
Design is a fixed fee based on how many templates need designing, catalogue complexity and whether a brand system already exists. We quote it after a discovery call, and you get the scope and fee in writing before work begins.
It typically takes a few weeks for a standard set of templates, and longer when the catalogue is large or the brand system is built from scratch. Most of the timeline depends on how quickly feedback rounds are completed.
Yes. All wireframes, the brand system, page designs and the clickable prototype are delivered in Figma, and you keep the files.
Yes. We can design within an existing theme's sections and add custom sections where needed. This keeps the build cost lower while still giving you a store that does not look like every other store on that theme.
No. This service designs a new store. Redesigning a live store also involves protecting URLs, redirects and existing rankings, so it is run as a separate service with its own process.
Yes, within the design system. Because colours, fonts and layouts are built as theme settings and sections, your team can change content, reorder sections and adjust styling in the theme editor.
Related services
- Liquid theme build from your designsturns the approved section library into working Online Store 2.0 code.
- Rebuilding a live store without losing trafficthe right route when your store is already trading.
- Campaign landing pagespaid and email traffic pages built on the same section library.
- Product page conversion worktests and improves the product template once real traffic arrives.
- Product copy and specsfills the designed product layout with descriptions that sell and rank.
Book a Shopify store design consultation
Send us your product list, brand assets and a few stores you admire. We will review them, suggest a design scope and send a fixed quote in writing. Book a free store design consultation.