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Design Market Standards

Standards for templates designed on Showit

JT Pals avatar
Written by JT Pals
Updated this week

This document outlines the official technical and structural standards required for all Full Site Designs submitted to the Showit Design Marketplace. Adhering to these guidelines ensures consistency, usability, and quality across all templates made available to Showit users.

Design Market Requirements:

Recent Updates

(Revision 06/25)

  • New Requirements

    • 404 page requirement

    • "Coming Soon" page name

    • Shape element naming conventions

    • Buttons

  • Guidelines and Best Practices

    • Handling Demo Blogs

    • "Getting Started" folder


  • Site designs need to be designed for industry categories currently sold through the Showit Design Market (sell other designs on your own store).

  • You’ll need to start your designs from our Designer Starter Templates, the Simple design, or one of your derivatives of those templates (create your own starter templates)

  • Designs started from another designer's work will be immediately disqualified. (yes, we can tell)

Licensed Content:

  • The designer is responsible for acquiring and maintaining all licenses for the distribution of media used in their design, including custom fonts, photos, icons, graphics and media. Showit will not be held responsible.

  • All media (custom fonts, images, videos) used within a design is distributed to the end user when it is shared. Any restrictions on use of the design content in a user's site should be communicated in the written store description of the design, available before purchase.

General Requirements

  • Site designs need to be designed for industry categories currently sold through the Showit Design Market (sell other designs on your own store)

  • All placeholder text must be in English—no Lorem Ipsum see our suggestions

  • All images must be safe for work

  • All elements on each canvas must be organized from top to bottom based on mobile layout. (With exceptions for layering)

  • Shape elements should be named clearly to reflect their purpose (e.g., "Text Background" instead of "Rectangle 34")

Site Setup

  • The Vanity URL should be customized and unique to the design. Avoid using the default Showit Vanity URL.

  • The design must include the following required pages:

    • "Home"

    • "Coming Soon"

    • Blog (Blog Template)

    • Single Post (Blog Template)

    • Page (Blog Template)

    • 404 (Blog Template)

Educational or Resource Pages

  • Pages that are exclusively used for educating the end user or supplying resources for the user to use on their final design should be set as Unpublished unless the content is meant to be shown in the design preview.

Page Naming & SEO

  • All pages must use short, generic names (e.g., "About" instead of "About Amy")

  • SEO fields on every page must be left blank for the end user to fill in


Design Settings Standards:

Fonts

  • All fonts shown on the Fonts tab are in use within the design. Any unused fonts have been removed from the active font list

  • There are no missing fonts in the design (“-Choose a font-” does not appear on any text boxes)

  • The designer has the rights to distribute any uploaded fonts included in the design (Google Fonts are free to distribute)

  • All Type Styles in the Design Settings must have an assigned font

Buttons

  • Both the Primary and Secondary button options should be customized with Fonts and colors to fit the design.

  • Manually created buttons with separate text and shape elements should be converted to buttons.


Navigation and Site Canvases

  • Each design must utilize a Site Canvas Set for navigation elements such as Header, Footer, and Mobile Navigation

    • A Site Canvas Set should be the primary method that sets navigation/footer across most site pages.

  • Internal navigation links on navigation canvases must have the Text Tag set to "Nav"

  • No text element in any Site Canvas should be tagged as H1

  • Buy Now or Purchase canvases are not permitted to display on the vanity URL of the template

Mobile Navigation

The mobile navigation canvas must:

  • Have all links set with the "Hide This Site Canvas" click action

  • If used, the Sticky and/or Hidden to Start settings must function correctly across all pages

  • Maintain the highest stacking order of all canvases on every page
    ​​

Social Links & Social Grid

  • All social icons must use the "Social Link" click action

  • If a social feed is present in the design, it must use Showit’s Social Grid Widgetnot a third party code.

Contact Form Requirements

Each contact form must:

  • Have labels for all fields that accurately describe their purpose

  • Include the following field settings:

    • Name: “In Subject” & “Required”

    • Email: “Reply-To” & “Required”

    • Primary Message Field: “Required”

  • Maintain proper field order in the Layers panel (top to bottom as shown on mobile)

  • Submit button/text must have the "Submit Contact Form" action

  • Confirmation canvas/page must be linked and designed

  • Any text element connected to “Submit” must have the Text Tag set to "div"

Galleries

  • Galleries must not use Vertical Edge Locking

  • Tiled Galleries must be placed inside canvases set to "Grow With Content"

Heading Tags (SEO)

  • Each page must contain exactly one H1 tag

  • No page should have multiple or missing H1 tags

  • Text elements used purely for design should use the Text Tag: "div"


Blog Templates (Required):

All Full Site Designs must have these three blog templates at a minimum:

A. Blog (Post List)

  • Must be set to "Post List (Default)" — no other template should be set as Post List

  • Include pagination using Newer Posts Link/Older Posts Link placeholders

  • Featured Images and "Read More" buttons must link to WordPress Posts

  • Layout should handle dynamic text areas properly

  • Post Title must be tagged as H2 (not H1)

  • The design should be tested using a Designer Test Blog on both desktop and mobile prior to submission

B. Single Post

  • Must be set to "Single Post" — no other template should be set as Single Post

  • Post Title and Post Content placeholders must be in separate canvases, "Grow With Content" should be active on both of these canvases

  • Post elements (Title, Date, Content, Image) must be on WordPress "In Post Loop" canvases

  • Comment areas must be on WordPress "Static Content" canvases

  • The design should be tested using a Designer Test Blog on both desktop and mobile prior to submission

C. Page (Blog Template)

  • Must be set with the WordPress Template: "Page" — no other template should be set as Page

  • Post Title and Post Content placeholders must be in separate, "Grow With Content" canvases

  • Page elements (Title, Date, Content, Image) must be on WordPress "In Post Loop" canvas type

  • Ensure proper growth and layout on both desktop and mobile

D. 404 Page

  • The 404 page must be a Blog Template named exactly “404”

  • The 404 page must use the “404” WordPress Template


Take the Design Market Standards Test


Best Practices:

The topics in this section are not requirements and will not be enforced during the design reviews. However, these are practices that, when followed, make the overall experience smoother for the end user.

Blog Demo Pages

  • To avoid users accidentally publishing a Demo Blog page (it happens all too often); please link to the standard blog page in your navigation when you generate your Share Key. Then you can link it back to the demo blog page to publish for template viewing purposes.

Getting Started Folder

  • To set up the end user for success, we recommend creating a “Getting started” folder in the design that holds pages containing all the info someone might need to customize your template and make it their own! (This could include “Resource” and “Education” pages)

  • Having all of this information in one folder can make an easy reference point for the end user


By following these standards, you help ensure a smooth user experience and uphold the quality of the Showit Design Marketplace. Designs that do not meet these standards will be returned for revision.

Thank you for your attention to detail and dedication to excellence!

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