[Free Course] 10x Your Shopify Theme Development Skills with These Free Courses

There's a lot to consider when it comes to building a successful Shopify theme. As much as you might want to dive head first into development, it’s often difficult to know where to start. Should you begin experimenting with Liquid hands-on, or diligently read our documentation from beginning to end?

Luckily, there's an easier way. In this article, we look at four resources you can use to develop and grow your Shopify theme development knowledge.

4 Shopify theme development courses to 10x your skills

These four courses will address different areas of your Shopify theme development journey, from learning Liquid, to working with Shopify Theme Kit, to taking your development skills to the next level.

We've ensured these courses are completely free — that way, you can start your path to growing your Shopify theme development skills today.

You might also like: 4 Essential Tips for Building Your First Shopify Theme.

1. Learn Theme Development with Shopify Partner Academy

To build themes, you need to understand Shopify’s core features and functionality as well as the front end development tools and frameworks. Shopify Partner Academy is a self-study academy full of courses that will walk you through the nuances of the Shopify platform. This online course series is designed to help you level-up your product and business skills.

In particular, the Design and Theming Fundamentals course will walk you through the basics of installing, customizing, and developing themes. You will get familiar with Liquid, theming APIs, and the Slate framework. Learn about theme development on Shopify and test your knowledge as you go.

Are you working with Visual Studio Code for development? Check out our article on the best Visual Studio Code extensions.

2. Learning Liquid: A Guide on Getting Started with Shopify Theme Development

Learning Liquid is the cornerstone of every great Shopify developer’s success. Whether you’re just starting out with Shopify themes, looking into specific features like Shopify sections, or you’re a seasoned Shopify Expert, there are always new and useful things to learn that will help with your everyday theme development. We’ve compiled a comprehensive list of hints, tips, and tricks for using Liquid that will help take your Shopify theme development skills to the next level.

In this guide, we’ll cover:

• An overview of the Liquid templating language
• How to setup a “local” development environment
• Techniques for getting the most out of your Shopify templates
• How to use Liquid to improve your images
• Tips, tricks, and hacks for customizing Shopify stores using Liquid

3. Shopify Essentials for Web Developers

If you're new to Shopify, start here. Senior Ecommerce Consultant Kurt Elster's three-hour course is intended for web designers and developers with little to no knowledge, and acts as a comprehensive primer on the Shopify ecosystem. This course will teach you how to get started with theme modification, and walks through the basics of offering your clients a completely custom development.

With over 17 bitesized videos, Kurt will show you how to add a new line of services to your existing web design business, by equipping you with everything needed to find success with Shopify.

This course will feature an in-depth look at the following topics:

• Getting started with ecommerce
• Intro to your partner account
• Development walkthrough
• Products, collections, and pages
• Products and their variants
• Pages and blogs
• Themes, layouts, and filters
• Themes and Liquid explained
• Layouts and templates
• Filters and loops
• Liquid walkthrough
• Using alternate templates and snippets
• Checkout
• Theme settings
• Making money with Shopify

4. Advanced Shopify Theme Development

If you are a seasoned Shopify professional looking to take your skills to the next level, this course is for you. In this 90-minute course, Shopify Expert Gavin Ballard will share the skills and knowledge that have enabled him to work on advanced themes and bespoke apps on the Shopify platform.

This course will teach you how to create exceptional and immersive ecommerce experiences; from using progressive enhancement on product pages, to “Ajaxifying” your cart, and more. Gavin will also share his best practices to help you streamline your own workflow and work  more effectively in teams.

This course will feature an in-depth look at the following topics:

• A better development workflow
• Advanced theme development
• Product customizations
• Filtering, sorting, and viewing collections
• Adding Ajax to your theme
• Advanced workflow and deployment
• Automating your workflow
• Deploying Shopify Themes

Looking for more Shopify theme development resources?

We're focused on helping you find success on our platform. From courses in Shopify Partner Academy, to the awesome information shared by our partners, the information you need to succeed is out there.