Articles on: Getting Started

Anatomy

A brief overview of the core parts of an Essential Grid


Before creating your first gallery, it’s helpful to understand how Essential Grid Gallery is organized. This guide explains the main areas of the app, what each section does, and how they work together when building and managing galleries.





Most galleries in Essential Grid follow this workflow:


  1. Create a gallery
  2. Add images, products, collections, or videos
  3. Customize the layout and appearance
  4. Configure gallery-specific settings
  5. Save and publish the gallery
  6. Add the gallery to your Shopify storefront using the Gallery ID



Type of Grid


1. Grid Layout


The most common main layout is Boxed, which means the grid will always inherit the same width as the rest of the page’s main content.



The actual width of the items will be based on the total width of the grid itself (for "Boxed", this would be the same width as the rest of the page’s content), divided by the number of columns chosen.


For example, if your theme’s main content area is normally 1000px at full size (i.e. "Desktop Large"), and the grid’s "Desktop Large" columns were set to "4", each grid item’s width would be 250px wide.


  • Grid Item Width = Total Grid Width / Number of Columns


Columns can be set per screen size, as shown in the following screenshot:



There are three main "Grid Layouts" that can be chosen from: Even, Masonry, and Collage:




2. Grid Layout -> Even


When an Even layout is chosen, all grid items will be 100% symmetrical. This means they’ll always be the exact same size as one another like the following example:



For an Even grid layout, the height of the grid item is based on the individual grid item’s width, in relation to the Items Ratio X:Y setting.


So if our individual grid items have a width of 250px, and an Items Ratio of 4x3, the grid item’s height would be around 188px tall.



Calculations used to determine the grid item’s actual size for an Even grid layout:

  • Grid Item Width = Total Grid Width / Number of Columns
  • Grid Item Height = Grid Item Width * (Items Ratio Y / Items Ratio



3. Grid Layout -> Masonry


When a Masonry grid layout is chosen, the height of the items can vary:



The main difference between an Even grid layout and a Masonry grid layout is that Even layouts use the Items Ratio X:Y to determine grid item height. But Masonry layouts have the option to use the image’s original size ratio instead, via the Media Ratio X:Y -> Auto option:



For example, let’s say an image is originally sized at 1000x500 (which would be a 2x1 ratio). When a Masonry layout is combined with Media Ratio: Auto, the grid item will always conform to this exact ratio. And because different images are sized differently to begin with, this is how Masonry layout grid items end up with varying heights.


Special Note: Image cropping will never occur when using a Masonry grid layout combined with an Auto Items Ratio.


Calculations used to determine the grid item’s actual size for a Masonry grid layout with an Auto Items Ratio:

  • Grid Item Width = Total Grid Width / Number of Columns
  • Grid Item Height = Grid Item Width * (Image Original Height / Image Original Width)


Quick Tip

To achieve Even sized grid items with a Masonry Layout, uncheck Auto for the Items Ratio, and then enter a fixed ratio to be used for the Grid’s image sizing as shown below:




4. Grid Layout -> Collage


A Collage layout is similar to an Even layout, in that a symmetrical grid will be drawn based on the same size calculations that are used for an Even grid layout.


But when a Collage layout is chosen, you have the ability to spread each individual item across multiple columns or rows, which allows for creating some really cool custom layouts like the following example:



When Collage is chosen as the grid’s layout, you can assign a Collage Pattern in two ways:


  1. The first is to create a global pattern (global pattern shown below is the exact pattern used to create the example above):



  1. Or you can assign a pattern manually to each individual item:




Here’s a visual of each Collage pattern applied to our original example:



Special Note: Similar to an Even layout, image cropping will also sometimes occur when a Collage layout is used.

Updated on: 11/08/2026