Check out my Youtube channel

Goodbye Dawn! Shopify Launches Horizon Theme at Shopify Editions Summer ‘25

Ed Codes author profile picture

Ed Codes

May 24, 2025

A few days ago, Shopify had its biannual Shopify Editions event.

As usual, there are a bunch of updates across different aspects of Shopify, but as you know, I’m more interested in theme editing and the storefront.

I’ll discuss each update in a few emails over the next week or so.

UPDATE: I also made a video talking about the new theme, global blocks, AI block generator and more. Check it out:

Let’s start with the new free themes.

Horizon - Shopify’s new default theme

Shopify has a new set of free themes called Horizon.

This isn’t another Dawn clone. This is an entirely new generation of themes using Shopify’s new ‘theme blocks’ that were announced in the last Editions 6 months ago.

Shopify's next generation of free themes based on Horizon

🤔 10 new themes?

No, just one.

As with Dawn and its siblings (Craft, Sense, Taste, etc.), Horizon also has its siblings (Pitch, Tinker, Savor, etc.)

They are all the same base theme (Horizon) but with different settings applied.

The code is the same (except for .json files, which record the settings), and you can make them look like each other through the theme customizer. So it’s better to think of them as presets.

I don’t like this naming strategy. It caused a lot of confusion with Dawn-based themes. I even made a video about this.

People would be deciding between what was essentially the same theme. And when I made tutorials labelled “for Dawn”, people wouldn’t know it was in fact for all Dawn-based themes.

Anyway, just know that it’s all Horizon.

What’s new in Horizon?

The biggest noticeable difference is its use of “theme blocks” - multiple levels of nested blocks up to 8 levels deep, allowing for much finer control over your content and design.

Theme blocks in action on Shopify Horizon themes

Shopify launched theme blocks in the last Editions - 6 months ago. But so far, there weren’t many themes using those features out of the box, and it was difficult to start using them on older themes.

Horizon is the first time we truly see theme blocks in action, and it’s a big change.

  1. It gives you much more control over your design. Every sub-block can be moved/removed/changed.
  2. Blocks are now “global” - you can put any block in any space on your theme. For example, you can output your product description just about anywhere on the page.

It’s very powerful, I’d almost say too powerful. It’s very easy to create a mess if you’re not careful about being consistent with your spacing, colors, and typography.

🤯 AI Block Generator

You can now create your own custom blocks with a prompt!

It’s really impressive - it generates some pretty good-looking sections with settings fields. The limit is whatever you can imagine and describe (in detail).

AI Generated Countdown timer block for Shopify Horizon themes

So no more Pagebuilders, no more Section Store, no more having to hire developers, right?

I don’t think so.

What I see is more work for theme developers, not less!

The AI-generated blocks are a great starting point, but it’s hard to get exactly what you want. It will generate a block that’s 80% done, but it needs edits to make it perfect.

It’s similar to writing an email or blog with ChatGPT - you always need to make some final edits, right? Imagine you couldn’t, and you’re forced to accept what it generates? That’s what it’s like using the AI blocks without knowing code.

Also, there is a lot of work that goes into writing professional code that can be used by a website with thousands of visitors.

You need to be sure there are no bugs, that it works across mobile and desktop, and that it’s built with proper accessibility practices.

So I imagine devs being hired to add the human touch - fix any weirdness, test across screen sizes, check for accessibility issues, and add (or remove) any extra settings.

Should you update from Dawn to Horizon?

I’d say not yet. It is undoubtedly a game changer, but I wouldn’t rush.

I’m going to wait 1-2 months for any bugs to be ironed out before updating shop.ed.codes to Horizon. By that time it will be version 1.1.0 maybe.

That being said, if I was building a new store from scratch right now, I would choose Horizon. It’s the way to future-proof your store.

You can grab all versions from the theme store.

Are third-party sections being replaced?

My first thought about the AI blocks was that this could kill my business 😅 and others like Section Store or Design Packs.

No doubt, we will need to adapt. But I think there is still, and will always be, a market for sections/blocks hand-crafted by professional developers.

As I explained above, you need that human touch and the assurance that you can use this on your store with thousands of visitors.

In other words, we are providing a guarantee and a kind of insurance - you have someone to email if there is a problem.

Support is missing from AI tools - you’re on your own with anything you generated.

So I’ll be updating my sections to work as Horizon blocks (and adding more), and I will continue selling the old versions for the thousands of stores that will still be running Dawn for the next 1-2 years.

In my next post, I will discuss some of the other features in this Shopify Editions.

By the way, I recently updated my comments functionality on my blog.

You don’t need to register to leave a comment, so please ask any questions there so I can reply publicly and everyone can benefit. Thanks!

See you in the next one!

Want posts like this in your inbox? Subscribe to the newsletter.

Comments

3 comments
  • Maltashopper

    Is there an easy way to move from Dawn to Horizon?


    1 reply
    • Ed Codes

      Unfortunately, no. It has entirely different settings, plus it's a visual redesign, so even if you could somehow migrate your content, it would no longer be the best way to display it. A redesign like this usually also means rewriting website copy.
      So moving from Dawn to Horizon should be thought of as a full website/brand refresh, not just a migration.


  • Sar

    Sounds amazing, thanks, Ed! I'm going to add Horizon now just to have a play around with it. I think your suggestion to wait a few months is a smart move. My current store is pretty heavily customised, so I’m not sure if anything will transfer across or if I’ll need to start from scratch. Either way, all the features you’ve described sound unreal!


    2 replies
    • Ed Codes

      Nothing will transfer across really, besides full custom and self-contained section files such as mine or Section Store etc... where all the code is in one .liquid file.
      If you move those across, be aware those sections will not automatically be able to contain the new global blocks - old sections will only have the blocks they were built with.


    • Tony Hubscher

      Hi Sar, I'm in a similar situation. I've spent a few years working on my current store. There has been lots of help along the way from Ed - naturally! However, my first instinct is to delay the upgrade to Horizon as long as possible becuase of the customisation in my code.


  • Bob

    I was hoping that Horizon would have the same feature set as Dawn, just with all the new building features. It seems that this is not the case. A couple of notable differences I have found are that there is no option to have a drawer style filter (only horizontal or vertical which both look messy if you have more than 2 or 3 filter options) and there does not appear to be any way to add animation effects (like parallax or fixed background) to image banners. I hope they add all these missing features over the next few weeks/months.


    1 reply
    • Ed Codes

      Yeah, I think they will add more features very soon.

      If you remember when Dawn came out - the first version of Dawn was super basic. It lacked even a normal product carousel with thumbnails. A lot of features were added over the next year or so. I expect the same will happen with Horizon as they collect user feedback.