Introduction
A major part of the branding of your Society6 store is your cover image. It is the first thing a potential customer will see on your homepage, and will dictate the feeling of your store.Â
Let’s look at the cover image used by Society6 seller Loish as an example.Â
This banner works for several reasons:
- It uses Loish’s actual artwork, meaning visual and brand consistency
- It includes her name. Being the largest bit of text on the screen, it will stick a lot in the viewer’s mind
- It says that this is a shop. It clarifies purpose – you are here to buy something
Why Do I Need a Template?
Despite Society6’s specifications that banners need only be 1000 x 100 pixels, they crop the image even further. Depending on where you place images and text on it, you can ruin your banner’s legibility and effectiveness.
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Take a look at the banner I made for my Society6 store, using Canva:
And now, look at how that banner looks once uploaded to my Society6 store, JessicaAmberArtist:
There are two things going wrong here.
Firstly, the top and bottom edges of the banner are getting cut off.
Secondly, the bottom centre of the banner is covered up by my avatar, which obscures my slogan.
I took it upon myself to make a template with clearly marked zones, so I’d know what would and would not be visible at different screen sizes.
The New Template
This template has gone through several reiterations, and we are now onto Version 3. It’s a bit complicated, so I’ll explain it.
Red Areas: Never visible, will always be covered by your avatar.
Green: Always visible.
Yellow: Visible on narrow PC and phones in widescreen orientation.
Pink: Visible in wide and medium width browsers.
Blue: Safe on widescreen desktops only.
Orange and Brown: Only visible on some medium width browsers.
Long Story Short...
If there is text you always want to be visible, put it in the green area.
And in general, keep design elements as close to the centre as possible, but not in the red circle.
PNG Version
I’m providing this template as a semi-transparent PNG, so you can import it over your artwork and easily see what will be visible in what zone.
PSD Version
I’ve made the PSD version even easier to use than before. Not only does it have the aforementioned template included, but it also has separate folders for each of the main browser sizes [narrow phone size, medium, and wide desktop]. Now you can see with one click if a design works in wide desktop orientation. And when you’re done, just hide all the guideline folders.
Template in Use
I imported my template into Canva and used it to help me reposition my design. Here is the adjusted banner.
And here is how it looks in various browsers.
The text is now visible in all sizes, not covered by my avatar. That’s great! It now looks much more professional.
Note: Your banner will probably look blurry, even if saved as a high-quality PNG. This is because of Society6 scaling the image up and down depending on the size of the browser window.
​Unfortunately, this deterioration in quality seems to be unavoidable at this stage. Uploading a larger image does not change the image quality.
Recommended Post
Society6 Template: Carry-All pouches
Make your zipper pouches look their best by using this handmade template, configured for all pouch sizes. Download it via this blog post.
Conclusion
I hope this template will help other Society6 artists improve their store homepages. If you’d like to see any other templates, leave a comment below!
Peace, love and sunshine,
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