What custom design means here
Custom design does not mean starting every pixel from scratch. It means the decisions are made for your store: the layout of a product page for a fragrance brand is different from one for a bike parts supplier, and the navigation for forty products is different from the navigation for four thousand. We design a small set of templates, a type scale, a colour palette and a library of components, then apply them to every page type your store needs.
On Shopify and BigCommerce this usually becomes a custom theme or a heavily adapted one. On WooCommerce it becomes a block theme or a classic theme with your templates. For a headless build it becomes a component library in the front-end framework. The design work is the same; only the delivery format changes.
The templates we design
Most stores need fewer templates than people expect, but each one carries a lot of weight.
| Template | What it has to do |
|---|---|
| Home | Show what you sell in one screen, route people to the right collection, carry seasonal campaigns without a redesign |
| Collection or category | Let shoppers filter and sort quickly on a phone, show price and key details on each card |
| Product | Answer the questions that stop a purchase: size, fit, compatibility, delivery, returns, total price |
| Cart and checkout | Show the full cost early and keep the path short; see cart and checkout |
| Content and guides | Support buying decisions with care guides, sizing help or comparisons |
| Policy pages | Delivery, returns and privacy written plainly, linked from product pages |
How the design process runs
- Product and customer review. We look at your range, your bestsellers, your margins and the questions customers ask most. If you have an existing store, we read the search terms people use on site and the pages where they leave.
- Structure first. Before any visual design, we agree the navigation, the collection structure and the content each template needs. This is where most usability problems are solved or created.
- Design direction. One direction, presented on real products from your range, with a home page, a collection page and a product page. We revise it with you rather than offering three half-finished options.
- Full template set. Every template designed at mobile and desktop widths, with empty states, long product names, sold-out variants and error messages included.
- Handover to build. Designs, components and notes go to the build stage, which we also run, so nothing is lost between a designer and a developer.
Design choices that matter more than they look
Photography direction. Product photos do more selling than any layout. We specify the shots each template needs (front, detail, scale, in use) and the aspect ratios that keep collection grids tidy. We do not supply stock photography, and we will tell you if a design depends on photos you do not yet have.
Readable prices. The ACCC expects businesses to show a total price that includes taxes and all unavoidable fees[1]. If you use component pricing, the total must be shown as a single figure at least as prominently as any part of it[2]. We design price blocks with that rule in mind, which also happens to be what shoppers prefer.
Contrast and touch targets. Text, buttons and form fields are designed to WCAG 2.2 Level AA, which added criteria such as a minimum target size and focus that is not hidden by sticky headers[3]. The Australian Human Rights Commission's 2025 guidelines on digital goods and services are written to help businesses meet their obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act[4], and an accessible store design is part of that.
Speed as a design constraint. Large hero videos, many web fonts and heavy sliders slow pages down. We design within a performance budget so the build can aim for Google's "good" Core Web Vitals band. For a store page that means the main image or heading painting by 2.5 seconds, taps and clicks answered in 200 ms or under, and a layout shift score no higher than 0.1, judged on three out of four real visits[5].
What you receive
- A design system file with colours, type, spacing and components
- Mobile and desktop designs for every template in the scope
- A photography and content brief for each template
- Annotated interaction notes for filters, galleries and the cart
- The built templates on your chosen platform, if the build is in scope
When custom design is not the right call
If you are testing a new product line, have a small catalogue and a tight budget, a well-chosen theme with careful setup is often the better investment. You can launch sooner and spend on photography and stock instead. We will say so if that is the case for you, and the cost guide shows how theme-based and custom builds compare on price.
How we quote it
Custom design is quoted as a fixed number of templates and revision rounds, listed in writing. Extra templates or extra rounds are quoted before they start. The pricing page explains what drives the figure.
Questions
Do I own the design?
Yes. Once the project is paid for, the design files, the theme code we write and your content belong to you. Third-party themes, apps and fonts remain under their own licences, which we list in the handover notes.
Can you design for a store that already exists?
Yes. A redesign starts with the current store's data: what people search for, where they leave and which pages sell. We keep what works and change what does not.
Will you use a theme or start from scratch?
It depends on the platform and budget. Many custom designs are built on a solid base theme to save time on standard parts, with the templates that matter built to your design.
How many revision rounds are included?
The quote names them, usually two rounds on the design direction and one on the full template set. More rounds can be added at a quoted price.
Sources
Opened and checked on 3 November 2026. Each entry says what kind of source it is.
- Price displays. ACCC, updated 2 October 2026. Regulator
- Component pricing. Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), small business toolkit, undated page. Regulator
- What's New in WCAG 2.2. W3C Web Accessibility Initiative, updated 5 October 2023. Standards body
- New guidelines to help providers of digital tech meet accessibility obligations. Australian Human Rights Commission, April 2025. Government
- Web Vitals. web.dev (Google), updated 31 October 2024. Platform documentation