How to Design Your Shop in Any Time Frame

The Design area of your Big Cartel shop gives you the power to decide the look and feel of your shop, regardless of your experience with graphic design or code. Our lineup of free themes are a fool-proof way to begin the layout for your store, and we're confident you can launch a good looking shop whether you spend one night or a few weeks making tweaks.

Quick and simple

Are you eager to get this show on the road? Big Cartel is built to keep things easy, so after you select your theme, you can adjust some fonts and colors (or not) and be ready to go.

The Design area hosts any logos or images you upload, so you don't need any special links or lines of code to get the job done. Design shows you a preview of your shop the whole time you're working, so you'll know when things are in a spot that feels true to you. Once you're happy with the state of your shop, hit the Publish button at the bottom of the page to make your changes visible to the outside world.

One fast tip: Even if you're doing a speedy setup, make sure to double-check links and take your shop for a test drive—tap on a product listing, add it to your cart, and visit the checkout page. You'll quickly discover most typos or design mismatches this way, and save yourself and your customers from frustration in the long run.

Take your time

For shop owners that have a more relaxed timeline, or who are feeling a little less sure, feel free to take things slow. As you make adjustments in the Design area, you'll see a notification that the changes have been saved. That means we're keeping track of the work you've done, but your design changes don't go live until you're ready to Publish.

This is your permission to explore—flip through some themes and make changes to the settings until you're loving the look. Then sleep on it and review the next day with fresh eyes. Or get a few things in place, and then come back to add assets like a logo or fresh photography as they're finished up.

One last reminder: Your final design won't be visible until you've tapped Publish and launched your shop. So feel free to leave and revisit the Design area as much as you like without stressing about shoppers seeing an in-progress version.

Designing a shop can be one of the more intimidating parts of launching your online business, but we don't think it has to be. With Big Cartel, you can make a store that satisfies, whether you stick to some simpler changes, or dive deep into slowly adjusting code. Go your own way, set a comfortable pace, and move forward with your business plans. And if you need help, our articles can offer clarification, and we have a team of real, live support folks who answer questions via email or right in your admin.