Layouts

Options

Overview

Familiarize yourself with the 4 layout options available in Novel for embedding shoppable videos on your Shopify store: Spotlight, Carousel, Overlay, and Stories.

Layouts Overview

Select Layout

Novel offers a variety of custom layouts to present your shoppable videos in the most engaging way possible.

To familiarize yourself with the various layouts available and understand how to select the best one of your embed, view our dedicated guide on each layout:

Layout

Attributes

Desktop UX

Mobile UX

Spotlight

one video, single, rectangular

Prominent rectangular video, vertical display

Full-screen rectangular video, swipe up/down

Carousel

side-by-side, scroll horizontal, rounded edges

Multiple rounded rectangle videos, horizontal scroll

Rounded rectangle videos, swipe left/right

Overlay

small video, bottom-pinned, fixed, rectangle

Small rectangular video, bottom-pinned

Fixed rectangular video, bottom-pinned

Stories

round icons,
tappable circles

Round icons, horizontal row, click to view

Round icons, tap to view

Changing the Layout

If you want your video content to have a different layout, you need to duplicate the journey. After duplicating, you can select the new layout you prefer, such as carousel, spotlight, stories, or overlay story.

Tuning Your Layouts

Often when you are looking at a specific layout example that Novel has, and want your journey to be in that style, you need to change the layout itself, rather than customize it within the studio.

When customizing layouts on Novel, it's important to distinguish between changing a layout and modifying detailed elements such as font, text, or colors.

Customizing Detailed Elements

For more detailed customization, such as changing the headline, font, text, border radius, and colors, you will need to modify the theme. This can be done within the Studio section of Novel.

We have specific guides on detailed customization within the Customize Theme sidebar for each layout:

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Use our stories layout.

  • If you are looking to create a video embed with "one large video", you are most likely best to be served by the spotlight layout.

  • In Novel, you are provided with 4 layouts: Spotlight, Carousel, Overlay, and Stories. There are no other layouts at this time.

  • You can achieve the equivalent functionality of changing the appearance by duplicating and changing the layout. Click the three dots next to the specific journey under Journeys, click Duplicate, and then select the desired layout within the Duplicate as modal.

  • You cannot change the size of the font though you have the ability to change the weight (i.e. thickness) of your font via the font weight options in the Customize Theme sidebar that appears after clicking Preview within the studio.

  • By design, the Spotlight layout's button placement is fixed in the center. This is based on user testing to optimize click-through rates and conversion.

  • The minimum number of videos required for a Carousel layout is five. Using fewer than five can make the carousel look sparse and unbalanced.