Beyond the Product Grid: Designing an Ecommerce Store Like an Editorial Experience

Most ecommerce stores are built around a catalogue.

Products are organised into grids, divided into categories and presented as efficiently as possible. This structure makes sense: people need to understand what is available and find what they are looking for.

But efficiency isn't the only thing a store can offer.

For visually driven brands, an online store can also create atmosphere, establish a point of view and give context to the products it sells. Instead of treating the website primarily as a catalogue, it can be designed more like an editorial object.

The products are still easy to find and buy. They simply become part of a larger visual experience.

A catalogue organises products. An editorial experience gives them context.

A traditional ecommerce catalogue asks a practical question: What do we sell?

An editorial approach also asks: What kind of world do these products belong to?

That difference changes the role of photography, typography and layout.

A product image doesn't always have to sit inside the same repeated card. It can appear at a larger scale, become part of a campaign image or sit alongside text that introduces an idea behind the collection.

Typography can establish rhythm and hierarchy rather than simply label sections.

Whitespace can create pauses between products and content instead of every available area being used to display something for sale.

The result is still an ecommerce store, but it communicates more than inventory.

A small collection can have more presence

This approach is particularly valuable for independent brands.

A new skincare company might launch with five products. A jewellery designer might have twelve pieces. A small accessories brand may release products in limited collections rather than maintaining hundreds of items at once.

A conventional catalogue layout can make this scale very visible. If the design relies heavily on rows of products, a small collection can leave the store feeling unfinished.

An editorial layout doesn't need to hide the fact that the collection is small. Instead, it can give each product more importance.

A row of products might be followed by a full-width campaign image. A collection introduction can establish the idea behind the products before they appear. Details, materials, ingredients or process can become part of the visual narrative.

The amount of content hasn't necessarily increased. The way it is composed has changed.

Photography starts doing more than showing the product

In a catalogue, photography often has one primary responsibility: showing the customer what they're buying.

An editorial store can ask more from an image.

You still need clear product photography. Customers need to understand shape, colour, texture, scale and detail. But those functional images can exist alongside photography whose purpose is different.

A close-up can communicate material or texture. A campaign image can establish mood. An unexpected crop can create visual tension. A photograph of a place, ingredient or process can give context without showing the product at all.

Together, these images create a visual language around the collection.

For brands where aesthetics are part of the value of the product, this distinction matters.

The layout creates rhythm

Editorial design isn't simply about making images bigger.

It is about composition.

If every section of a page has the same proportions, every image has the same scale and every product is given identical visual weight, the experience becomes predictable very quickly.

Changing scale creates hierarchy.

A large image followed by a smaller product grid feels different from six identical sections stacked on top of one another. A short piece of text surrounded by generous space creates a pause. An asymmetrical composition can draw attention to something without adding another banner or badge.

These decisions create rhythm as someone moves through the page.

The website begins to feel composed rather than assembled.

It gives the brand somewhere to exist beyond the product page

A strong brand usually contains more than a logo, colour palette and collection of products.

There might be a philosophy behind the materials, a particular approach to production, references that influenced a collection, a founder's perspective or simply a recognisable visual sensibility.

If the entire website consists of a homepage banner, product grid and product pages, there are very few places for that identity to exist.

An editorial approach creates those spaces.

An About page can become more than a block of text. An ingredients or materials page can combine information with photography. A journal can extend the visual language of the store. Campaign imagery can live between commercial sections rather than being confined to social media.

This is where ecommerce and brand experience begin to overlap.

Editorial doesn't mean difficult to shop

There is an important distinction between an editorial store and an experimental interface.

A website can be visually expressive without making customers learn how to use it.

Navigation should still be understandable. Product names and prices should be clear. Variants should be easy to select. Filtering should work as expected. Adding something to the cart shouldn't require discovering a hidden interaction.

I think the most successful editorial ecommerce design keeps the transactional layer relatively simple.

The experimentation happens around it: in image scale, typography, pacing, composition and the relationship between product and brand content.

The customer gets the atmosphere of an editorial experience without losing the familiarity of a store.

Not every brand needs this approach

For a retailer with thousands of products, speed and catalogue navigation may reasonably take priority. Customers arriving with a very specific purchase in mind often benefit from dense product grids, extensive filtering and straightforward merchandising.

An editorial approach becomes more interesting when the brand itself is part of the reason someone is buying.

Fashion, beauty, jewellery, fragrance, homeware and other design-led categories often fall into this space. The customer isn't only comparing specifications. They are responding to taste, identity, materials, imagery and the point of view behind the product.

For smaller independent brands in particular, this can be an advantage.

You probably can't compete with a large retailer on the size of the catalogue.

You don't necessarily need to.

The idea behind our Shopify themes

This editorial approach to ecommerce is at the centre of the Shopify themes we create at Crema y Pomada Studio.

SOULIN, House Decor and Mannui have different visual identities, layouts and ways of presenting content, but they share the same underlying idea: an online store can be both functional and visually expressive.

Products remain easy to discover and purchase, while photography, typography, spacing and editorial content have enough room to establish the character of the brand.

The goal isn't to make ecommerce look like a magazine at the expense of usability. It's to bring the principles of editorial design into a store without losing the clarity that shopping requires.

For an independent brand, that means the website doesn't have to function only as a place where products are listed.

It can become part of the brand itself.