Creating a Custom Shopify Theme from Scratch

Customizing a Shopify theme allows for a unique brand expression and tailored shopping experiences. This guide provides all the necessary steps and best practices to create and launch a custom Shopify theme from scratch.

Setting Up Your Development Environment

The first step in theme development is setting up your environment. Shopify recommends using their own Shopify CLI for theme development which simplifies processes such as theme creation, local testing, and deploying themes to your Shopify store.

Code Snippet: Installing Shopify CLI

# Install Shopify CLI on your system
brew tap shopify/shopify
brew install shopify-cli

# Log in to your Shopify account
shopify login --store your-store-name.myshopify.com

Creating Your Theme Structure

Once your development environment is ready, the next step is to scaffold out your new theme. Shopify CLI can generate a new theme that uses the default theme, Dawn, as a starting point.

Code Snippet: Creating a New Theme

# Create a new theme named 'CustomTheme'
shopify theme init CustomTheme --clone-url https://github.com/Shopify/dawn.git

# Navigate into your new theme directory
cd CustomTheme

Editing Theme Files

Shopify themes are built using Liquid, Shopify’s templating language. You’ll be editing Liquid files along with CSS for styles and JavaScript for interactivity.

Code Snippet: Adding a Custom Section

<!-- Create a custom section file -->
{% schema %}
{
  "name": "Custom Banner",
  "settings": [
    {
      "type": "image_picker",
      "id": "image",
      "label": "Banner Image"
    },
    {
      "type": "text",
      "id": "heading",
      "label": "Banner Heading"
    },
    {
      "type": "text",
      "id": "button_label",
      "label": "Button Label"
    },
    {
      "type": "url",
      "id": "button_link",
      "label": "Button Link"
    }
  ]
}
{% endschema %}

{% stylesheet %}
/* Add CSS directly related to your custom section */
.banner-class {
  display: flex;
  align-items: center;
  justify-content: center;
}
{% endstylesheet %}

{% javascript %}
/* Add JavaScript to enhance your section */
document.querySelector('.my-button').addEventListener('click', function() {
  alert('Button clicked!');
});
{% endjavascript %}

Testing and Previewing Your Theme

Shopify CLI provides tools to serve your theme locally and preview it in a real Shopify environment before publishing.

Code Snippet: Previewing the Theme

# Start local development server
shopify theme serve

Deploying Your Theme

Once you’re satisfied with the custom theme, use Shopify CLI to deploy it to your store.

Code Snippet: Deploying the Theme

# Deploy your theme to Shopify
shopify theme push