What to Look for in a Shopify Designer & Questions to Ask When Hiring One
Hiring a Shopify designer is a bit of a leap of faith. Most portfolios look polished, most proposals sound confident, and it's genuinely hard to tell from the outside whether someone can actually build a store that sells, or whether you're about to pay for a nice looking template with your logo on it.
The good news is you don't need to become a Shopify expert to hire well. You just need to know what to ask.
Why the Wrong Fit Costs More Than Money
A mismatched designer rarely shows up as an obvious red flag on day one. It shows up three months later, when the site looks fine but isn't converting, when apps have been added on without much thought, or when you realise the "custom design" is a demo theme with the colours swapped out. By then you've spent the budget and the time, and you're looking at a second build instead of a first one done properly.
Getting the fit right upfront is the cheapest part of the whole process.
What to Look For
Solid experience building on Shopify specifically, with a track record to show for it
A process that starts with brand and strategy before any design work begins
Trained as a brand designer as well as a Shopify designer, so colour, type, and brand elements are applied with intention
The ability to choose the right theme for the project, based on what the store needs
Confidence selecting and integrating apps that support the store without slowing it down or creating a mess of subscriptions
Understanding of on-page SEO fundamentals, such as page titles, meta descriptions, and image optimisation, so the store is set up to be found in search as well as to convert once someone lands on it
A portfolio with real, measurable outcomes attached
Comfort working across both design and the more technical side of Shopify
That brand designer point matters more than people expect. Knowing how to code a theme isn't the same skill as knowing how to use colour, typography, and brand elements with any real intention. Someone experienced in both disciplines understands why a brand's colour palette works the way it does, where a logo should and shouldn't appear, and how to carry a brand's personality through every page of the store, from the homepage to the product pages.
Case in Point
When Coco Chocolate came to us, their Wordpress site hadn't been touched in over a decade. It wasn't mobile friendly, and most of their traffic was arriving from Instagram and bouncing straight off a desktop-only layout. The Shopify build consolidated the site down to more focused pages, connected Instagram Shopping so followers could buy directly from a tagged post, and rebuilt the shop with proper filtering and quick buy functionality. None of that comes from picking a nice theme. It comes from understanding what the site needed to do and choosing the structure and apps to match.
Rhodie & Co already had a Shopify store, but the structure wasn't doing its job. Products and product features were hard to find, there was nothing guiding a visitor toward a decision, and the copy wasn't doing any of the selling. We restructured the site so products and their key features sat together in a way customers could comfortably navigate, added clear calls to action through every step of the journey, and rewrote the copy with conversion in mind rather than just describing what the product does. A Shopify site can look fine and still underperform if the structure and the wording aren't working toward a sale.
Questions to Ask Before You Hire a Shopify Designer
Can you walk me through your design process from start to finish?
How do you approach brand strategy before you get into visuals?
How do you decide which theme to use for a project?
Which apps would you recommend for my store, and why those ones specifically?
How will SEO be handled during the build?
What happens after launch, is there support or training included?
Can you show me a project with a similar scope to mine?
Red Flags to Watch For
No discovery process, straight into design with no questions about your brand or customers
Every portfolio piece looks like the same theme with different colours
No clear answer on timelines, revisions, or what happens post launch
Reluctance to explain why they'd choose a particular app or theme for your store
No mention of SEO at all during the process
Ready to Talk Shopify?
At So Swell Studio, we work with ecommerce businesses to create strategic brand identities and Shopify websites designed to support long term growth. If you're weighing up who to bring on for your Shopify build, I'm happy to have a conversation about what your store needs before you commit to anyone. Get in touch and let's talk it through.
