Thomas Kimura /
Jun 1, 2026
Why We Built a Design Library for Shopify
We have spent the last few years building Shopify themes.
That means we spend a lot of time looking at storefronts. Not just in the abstract, but in the very practical way you look at something when you are trying to understand why it works.
What does the homepage do well? How is the product page structured? What kind of photography is the brand using? How are they handling navigation, bundles, reviews, education, wholesale, subscriptions, drops, or landing pages?
This kind of research is part of almost every ecommerce project. Before you design anything, you need references. Before you build anything, you need direction.
The problem is that Shopify design research is still way more scattered than it should be.
You end up with random screenshots, saved links, old moodboards, bookmarked stores, Figma files, Notion docs, and half-remembered examples you saw two weeks ago but cannot find anymore.
That is part of why we built Catalog.
Catalog is our design library for Shopify and ecommerce storefronts. The goal is simple: make it easier to find, save, study, and eventually build from real storefront references.
At first, that means a better place to look for inspiration. But the bigger idea is that Catalog can become more than just a place for inspiration - a place to built Shopify storefronts.
The Theme Store is not built for infinite design exploration
One of the constraints with the Shopify Theme Store is that theme providers can only publish a limited number of presets for each theme.
That makes sense from a marketplace-management perspective. Shopify needs the Theme Store to stay browsable and understandable.
But it creates a weird incentive for theme developers.
If you have one flexible theme that can support a lot of different storefront directions, you can only show a small slice of what is possible inside the Theme Store. If you want more visibility, the marketplace often rewards publishing another theme instead of designing more presets for the theme you already built.
That means developers are pushed toward writing more code, creating more theme listings, and maintaining more products instead of spending more time exploring what one strong theme can become.
But a good Shopify theme should not be judged only by five demos.
The same theme could support a skincare brand, a furniture store, a fashion label, a food brand, a wholesale storefront, a creator shop, or a high-volume product catalog. Those do not always need separate themes. Sometimes they need different design systems, different presets, and better examples.
That is where Catalog becomes interesting for us.
On Catalog, theme partners can showcase multiple presets built with the same Shopify theme. They can submit different storefront directions, different industries, and different design systems without needing every idea to become a separate Theme Store listing.
That is useful for us with Slab, but it is not only for Slab. If another theme developer has a flexible theme, Catalog can give them a place to show more of what it can do. Not just the few official presets that fit inside the Theme Store, but the larger design range around the theme.
For merchants, that means more realistic examples. For agencies and developers, it means better starting points. For theme partners, it means a new way to turn design work into visibility.
With Slab, we can show the range of what the theme can do without pretending every visual direction needs to become a separate product.
For us, this is not just about making a nicer inspiration site. It is part of how we want to sell and explain Slab. But more broadly, it is also a way to give theme developers more room to design.
Slab is built to be a flexible storefront foundation. The theme has the pieces: sections, templates, settings, layout options, and performance. But flexibility is hard to sell if people only see one or two demo directions.
Catalog gives us a better place to show the design layer.
A better place for Shopify design inspiration
There is also a more basic reason we wanted Catalog to exist: Shopify deserves a better inspiration library.
Ecommerce design is its own category. A beautiful storefront has to do more than look good. It has to explain products, move people through a buying journey, support content, handle variants, build trust, and still feel like a real brand.
That makes Shopify inspiration different from general website inspiration.
When someone is designing a Shopify store, they usually want to see how other stores are solving the same kinds of problems. They want to compare product pages, collection pages, navigation patterns, bundles, landing pages, education sections, and brand storytelling.
The best inspiration is specific enough to be useful.
That is the role we want Catalog to play. A place where merchants, designers, developers, and agencies can find real ecommerce references and use them as a starting point for better storefront decisions.
Over time, we want Catalog to become more searchable, more organized, and more useful for actual project work. Not just a place to browse, but a place to collect direction before a build starts.
A better theme editor experience
The part I am most excited about is what comes after inspiration.
Right now, a lot of Shopify work still depends on manually translating references into theme editor changes. You find a store you like. You collect screenshots. You open the theme editor. You start clicking through settings, adding sections, changing spacing, swapping content, and trying to get close.
That workflow works, but it is not as easy as it should be.
I think we have relied on the Shopify theme editor for too long as the main interface for building storefronts. It is useful, but it has not evolved quickly enough for how merchants, developers, and agencies want to work now.
People want faster starting points. They want to describe a direction and get something close. They want themes that are structured enough for AI agents to understand. They want less blank-canvas setup and more useful systems.
That is a big part of how we are thinking about Slab.
Slab already has the pieces for a full page-building experience. The question is how to make those pieces easier to use.
Catalog gives us a place to explore that.
Imagine finding a storefront reference, choosing a Slab preset inspired by that direction, and then using agents to generate a page, section, or theme configuration that is actually compatible with the theme.
That is the direction we are interested in: references connected to presets, presets connected to themes, and themes connected to agents.
