Should you hire a Shopify designer or a Shopify developer?
The terms are frequently used interchangeably, but they aren't quite the same thing. Understanding the difference can make it much easier to find the right person for your project.
What Does a Shopify Designer Do?
A Shopify designer concentrates primarily on how the ecommerce store looks and how customers interact with it.
Their work can include:
- Homepage layouts
- Branding
- Typography
- Colour
- Navigation
- Product page layouts
- Collection layouts
- Mobile design
- User experience
- Calls to action
- Visual hierarchy
Good Shopify design isn't simply decoration. A professional Shopify web designer should understand how design influences purchasing behaviour.
Where should the Add to Cart button appear?
How much information should customers see before scrolling?
Should filters appear horizontally or vertically?
What should happen when somebody selects a product variant?
Those are design decisions, but they're also ecommerce decisions.
What Does a Shopify Developer Do?
A Shopify developer is generally more focused on the technical implementation.
That can involve:
- Shopify Liquid
- HTML
- CSS
- JavaScript
- Shopify APIs
- Theme development
- Metafields
- Metaobjects
- App integrations
- Custom functionality
- Cart development
- Product functionality
For example, a developer might build a custom product selection system that doesn't exist within the theme.
Do You Need Both?
Often, yes. The difficult part of professional Shopify work is that design and development frequently overlap.
Imagine redesigning a product page. The designer decides that a particular product selector would provide a better customer experience. But the existing Shopify theme doesn't support it.
Development is then needed to turn the design into working functionality. This is why we believe the strongest Shopify projects combine both disciplines.
What About Shopify Experts?
"Shopify expert" is a broader description.
Someone may specialise in:
- Development
- Design
- SEO
- Marketing
- Migration
- Apps
- Strategy
So don't assume that everybody describing themselves as a Shopify specialist provides the same services.
Look at what they've actually built.
Questions to Ask Before Hiring
Ask potential Shopify designers or developers:
Can I see examples of Shopify stores you've worked on?
Do you write custom Liquid?
Can you create custom sections?
Do you understand Shopify metafields and metaobjects?
Do you rely heavily on apps?
Do you understand technical SEO?
Can you work with my existing theme?
What happens after launch?
Their answers should give you a much clearer picture of their capabilities.
Why Development Knowledge Matters to Shopify Designers
Knowing what's technically possible changes how you design.
If a Shopify designer has no development knowledge, they can create layouts that become unnecessarily expensive or difficult to implement.
Likewise, development without design knowledge can produce technically impressive functionality that's frustrating for customers to use.
It's the combination that matters.
A Simple Example
Suppose a jewellery business wants customers to browse products, shortlist several pieces and then request an appointment to view them.
A purely visual solution isn't enough.
The project requires:
-
Designing the shortlist experience.
-
Adding buttons to products.
-
Storing selected products.
-
Creating a persistent shortlist.
-
Building an enquiry interface.
-
Sending the selected product information to the retailer.
-
Ensuring everything works properly on mobile.
That is simultaneously a UX design and development project.
What We Do at Fat Buddha Web Design
We're a Shopify web design team rather than a large agency where each tiny part of a project is passed to a different department.
We work across design and front-end Shopify development.
That means we can look at a problem from both directions:
What would provide the best customer experience?
and
What's the most sensible way to build it in Shopify?
That's often where the best solutions come from.
Find out more on our Complete Guide to Building a High-Converting Shopify Store.
