For a lot of you reading this and based on the title you’re probably wondering what’s going on at Brickspace Lab. What do they do? Sometimes it feels like a lot. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like enough. So let me tell what we’ve been up to lately.
First of all if you don’t know we have three Shopify themes available. - 15 if you count presets (which is a whole story in itself).
With that out of the way I’m going to be pulling back the curtains and showing you some more behind the scenes on what we’re working on and what you can expect from us.
Coming soon
New theme
We’re working on a new theme that we’re aiming to release by the end of the year. We’re calling it [REDACTED].
This will be a fully modular Shopify theme built with theme blocks. If you don’t know theme blocks are a way to break out every little thing into re-useable and editable components. Basically you will be able to create nearly infinite layout and style combinations.
We’ve got grids, sliders, tables, flex grids, and tabs that can be nested inside each other to build your templates. Using theme blocks also means this theme will support Shopifys newest block generator so you can create new blocks just by asking AI.
We’ll be sharing a waitlist for this soon. For more detailed progress updates join our Discord or follow along on Twitter/Instagram/LinkedIn.
Releases
New website
We launched a new website for ourselves. I think it does a much better job highlighting each of our themes. Previously our website was designed when we only had one theme available - now that we have 3 (and more on the way). We need a website that does a better job highlighting all of them.
Our new website is also designed around our improved theme support. We now offer 1-on-1 onboarding and demo calls. Anytime you want - just book a call and speak with someone on our team about our products. You can find this on our website on nearly any page at the top by clicking the “Book a demo” button.
New docs
Our docs got a much needed face lift. We spent a lot of time overhauling the docs and making them easier to use. We moved over to GitBook to manage this process which is a million-bilion times easier (sorry Intercom).
It’s not a complete rewrite of all the documentation we have but is a reorganization that I think is much better. The sidebar navigation makes it so much easier to sift through different docs and find what you want. Plus the AI search feature is even better if you don’t know exactly what your looking for.
New support team
We’re expanding our support team so we can provide better onboarding. We really want to make sure our customers have everything they need to succeed in ecommerce.
You can now book 1-on-1 onboarding calls and get expert advice from a real human. This is something I’m super excited about and not sure many other (if any) theme companies are providing this type of support. If you have any questions about our themes or want to ask a real human for help you can do that now.
Theme updates
New theme versions have been coming out periodically. Updates have slowed down a bit since we’re focused on building new features now for our new themes. We will however continue to maintain and fix bugs as fast as we can.
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Keystone v1.4.0
- This update includes a batch of bug fixes and introduces a new setting to link the account icon in the header directly to the account page, bypassing the account drawer if desired.
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Paper v8.0.3
- Small fix here with improvements to the install experience and header bar.
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Space v2.1.2
- Small fix here with improvements to the install experience and store locator fixes.
New client projects
Over the past few months we've had the opportunity to work on a number of new site launches. It's not something we do a lot of but when everything works out it's great. Right now we're focused on growing our theme business so that just means we're a bit more selective with the type of projects we take on.
The recent theme migrations we've worked on have been great. We install and setup our Shopify theme and usually do a bit of custom work to bring their visions to life. Take a look at some of the launches
AND we have a few more set to launch in the next few weeks. If you want to learn more about the type of services we offer just reach out.
Shopify updates
New features
Shopify has been pumping out features recently. There's way too much to cover everything here, but if I had to highlight one standout, it'd be the new copy and paste support. You can now click to copy, paste or duplicate blocks and sections inside the theme editor. It’s probably already saved me hours of tedious work.
If you want to see the full list of updates go check out the Shopify Editions page.
New theme store
The new Shopify theme store launched earlier this month. All presets now have their own listing on the theme store. I have a lot of thoughts on this and think this could be making things more confusing. It’s now harder to see what theme a preset belongs to and it’s not exactly clear what a preset or theme is.
I’m really hoping this update from Shopify is the first of many. Seeing any changes to the theme store is great so fingers crossed they keep it up and clean up some of the confusing details.
More importantly the theme store now lets you install the theme exactly like it is on the demo store. So basically you get the theme matched to the demo store when you install - thus making your setup much faster. Very good. Shout out to Shopify for getting this functionality built into the theme installation process.
Co-marketing
Do you want to get featured on our social media? We're going to be sharing more of our customers and showcasing different ways our themes are being used.
There are so many awesome sites I see everyday using our themes. I think it's time we start telling people about it and sharing the awesome success stories. So if you want to get featured just hit us up.
