BrandStills how to make a shop banner image
How do I make a banner image for my shop?
Make a shop banner by finding your platform's current banner dimensions in its help pages, choosing one strong wide photo or a flat brand colour as the base, adding your shop name or one short line of text kept near the centre, and checking the result on a phone, where the edges are often cropped away. Free design apps have ready-sized banner templates for every major platform.
A shop banner is a wide, short strip, and designing for that shape is most of the job. Here is the whole process:
- Get the size from the source. Every platform publishes its current banner dimensions in its help pages, and they do change, so check yours rather than trusting a number from an old blog post. Free design apps also carry ready-sized templates per platform, which handles this step for you.
- Choose one base. Either a single wide photograph (your products in a row, a styled scene, your workspace) or a flat colour pulled from your label. One or the other. Collages read as clutter at banner height.
- Add very little text. Your shop name, perhaps one short line under it. Keep it near the horizontal centre, because platforms crop banner edges differently on phones, and a name that sits at the edge disappears.
- Check it small and on a phone. Look at the live shop on a mobile screen before calling it done. Most banner disasters are discovered by customers instead.
Getting a banner-worthy photo
The text is easy; the wide photo is where shops get stuck, because a banner wants either a landscape scene or several products in one frame, and both are awkward to stage on a kitchen table. Three honest routes: shoot your products in a row by a window on a long clean surface, licence a generic backdrop photo and accept that it shows no product, or render one. BrandStills takes two or three phone photos of each product and can place several of them into a single frame using collection scenes like a product lineup or stepped podiums, with each label and colour locked to your real items, which is exactly the wide, product-filled image a banner strip wants. You can stage your shop name onto the image in the app, or export it clean and add text in your design tool.
However you make it, keep the same banner bones as seasons change: swap the scene, keep the layout and the type. A consistent banner is part of what makes a shop feel established rather than freshly opened, and it takes an evening, not a designer.
Frequently asked questions
What should a shop banner actually show?
Either your products or your brand mood, not both fighting. The two reliable formulas are a wide photo of your products arranged in a row or scene, or a flat colour with your shop name and one short line. Cramming in offers, badges and multiple photos is what makes banners look homemade.
What size should my shop banner be?
It varies by platform and changes over time, so take the dimensions from your platform's current help pages or use a design app's ready-made template for that platform. As a rule of thumb banners are very wide and short, so design for a strip, not a rectangle.
Do I need a new banner for each season?
It is one of the cheapest ways to make a shop look active. A Christmas or summer version of the same banner layout signals a tended shop, and returning visitors notice. Keep the layout and swap the imagery.
Related guides
A good Etsy shop banner communicates what you sell in under a second: one strong photo of your products or craft, your shop's colours, and little or no text beyond perhaps the shop name. Because banners are wide and shallow and get cropped differently across devices, keep anything important in the vertical middle and check Etsy's current help pages for the exact pixel sizes before you export.
What is a hero image, and what makes a good one?A hero image is the large, first image a visitor sees: on a website it is the big banner at the top of the page, and in product photography it is the lead shot of the product itself, the one that becomes the listing thumbnail. A good one shows one clear subject, survives being shrunk or cropped, leaves room for any text placed over it, and loads fast.
How do I add text to product photos for Instagram posts?Use a free design app such as Canva or your phone's photo editor to layer text over the image, keeping it short, high-contrast and away from the product itself. For Stories, Instagram's built-in text tool is enough; for feed posts, add the text before uploading so you control the font and placement.
Last updated August 29, 2026.
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