Bracken
Documentation

Everything you need to run Bracken.

Bracken is built to be set up in minutes and shaped over years — every colour, font, and layout choice lives in your theme settings, not in code you have to touch.

Getting started

You'll have received a .zip file when you purchased Bracken. To install it on your store:

  1. From your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Themes.
  2. Click Add theme > Upload zip file, and select the Bracken zip you downloaded.
  3. Once it appears under Theme library, click Customize to preview it before publishing.
  4. When you're happy with your setup, click Publish to make it live.

Tip: keep your previous theme in the Theme library (don't delete it) until you're fully happy with Bracken — you can switch back instantly if needed.

Presets

Bracken ships with three presets. They differ in palette, type scale, corner treatment and homepage arrangement, so each one reads as a distinct style rather than a recolour:

  • Bracken — cream ground, dark olive text, leather accent. The reference style.
  • Thicket — warmer and heavier, russet browns over a toasted ground, square product images.
  • Kestrel — cooler and quieter, pale ground with slate-olive text, square corners and wider letter spacing.

Pick a preset when you install the theme, or switch later under Customize > Theme settings. Changing preset replaces your colour and typography settings, so set your preset first and customize afterwards.

Customizing colours & fonts

Colour schemes

Each preset includes five colour schemes — light grounds, deep grounds, and an accent scheme — so you can vary sections without leaving the palette. Go to Customize > Theme settings > Colours to edit them.

Every scheme controls background, text, accent, rules and borders, and button colours consistently across every page. Sections choose a scheme in their own settings, which is how you get a dark band between two light ones without touching CSS.

Typography

Under Theme settings > Typography you'll find:

  • Heading font — a font picker, set to Fraunces by default.
  • Heading size and Heading letter spacing — scale the display type without editing anything else.
  • Body font — a font picker, set to Inter by default.
  • Body size — scales body copy.
  • Use uppercase labels and Label letter spacing — control the small letterspaced text used for eyebrows, footer headings, and buttons.

Both font pickers draw from Shopify's own font library, so anything available to your store is available here.

Layout

Theme settings > Layout controls maximum page width, page margin, space between sections, image and button corner radius, and rule thickness — the hairline weight used between sections and around cards.

Sections overview

Bracken's pages are built entirely from drag-and-drop sections in Customize.

  • Header — logo, menu, sticky option, search and account links.
  • Announcement bar — one or more rotating messages above the header.
  • Footer — menu, text, and newsletter columns, plus policies, payment icons, and country and language selectors.
  • Hero — full-bleed image with an offset text panel and up to two buttons.
  • Collection rail — a row of products from one collection; scrolls on mobile, settles into a grid on desktop.
  • Collection list — image tiles linking to your collections.
  • Image with text — a picture and a block of copy, image left or right.
  • Lookbook — a numbered, captioned image grid with wide and narrow shots.
  • Quotes — up to three short customer quotes side by side.
  • Blog posts — recent articles from a chosen blog.
  • Newsletter — email capture with its own heading and copy.
  • Rich text — free-form heading, text, button, and image blocks.
  • Product recommendations — related products on the product page.
  • Custom Liquid — for app snippets or your own code.
  • Apps — a host section for app blocks on any template.

Product, collection, cart, search, blog, article, page, and 404 templates each have their own settings for columns, filtering, sorting, and what to show.

Frequently asked questions

Where do I change the logo?

The logo is a header setting, not a theme setting. Go to Customize > Header to upload it and set its width. If you don't upload one, your store name is used as a text wordmark.

Where do I change the favicon?

Under Theme settings > Brand assets, in the Favicon setting. The same group holds Social sharing image, used when a page has no image of its own.

Can I use a drawer cart instead of a cart page?

Yes — Theme settings > Cart > Cart type. The drawer is the default; switching to a cart page sends shoppers to /cart instead. The same group has Enable order notes if you want a note field at checkout.

Why is my desktop menu showing as a drawer?

Bracken measures your menu against the space available and falls back to the drawer when it doesn't fit, rather than letting menu items overlap. Long menu labels or a large number of items will do this. Shorten the labels or reduce the number of top-level items to bring the horizontal menu back.

Why are there no colour swatches on my product cards?

Swatches read from the swatch values set on your product options in Shopify admin. If none are set, the theme leaves the row empty rather than guessing colours. Set swatches on your colour option and they'll appear.

Will Bracken slow down my store?

No. Bracken is built to Shopify's performance standards, with scripts loaded only when a section actually needs them, so your store stays fast as you add pages and products.

Is Bracken compatible with the Shopify apps I already use?

Bracken follows Online Store 2.0 standards, so most apps that support OS 2.0 themes will integrate normally through app blocks.

I found a bug or something looks broken. What do I do?

Visit our support page and send us the details — we reply within two business days.

Changelog

Bracken is actively maintained. Update notes for each version are shared on the support page and included with your next download from the Shopify Theme Store.