Artist categories provide an additional category system for your products that works independently of your standard category and sub-category system. Artist categories can be used to sort products by any single property of your choosing, e.g. artist name, product brand, record label, author, etc.

Artist categories are displayed as a single drop-down menu that can be labelled and located in any of your shop main menus via your theme custom options.

Activating Artist Categories

To activate your artist categories, navigate to the Store > Settings section of your shop admin, scroll to the Options section and check the Artists option.

Click the SAVE button at the bottom of the admin page after changing your settings.

Assigning Artist Categories

Once your artist categories are activated, the artist category controls will appear directly under the standard category controls on all existing and new product edit pages (refer to your Products admin area).

You now can add, edit and assign artist categories in exactly the same way you work with standard categories. For more information, refer to How do I add a product category to my Big Cartel shop?

Editing the Artist Category Menu

By default your artist category menu will be labelled “Artists” and will appear in your shop category menu. You can modify the artist category menu label and location via your Primary Custom Options. Primary Custom Options are located in your Customize design > Advanced () – Layout page code (refer to How do I use the Custom Options for my Big Cartel theme?).

Artist category menu link settings are located in the {{ NAVIGATION OPTIONS }} option section as follows:

{% assign artists_link_text = 'Artists' %}
{% assign artists_link_location = 'ca' %}

So, for example, if we were using the artist category to sort products by brand, we could edit these options to:

{% assign artists_link_text = 'Brands' %}
{% assign artists_link_location = 'ca' %}

For more information on setting the link text and location, refer to the relevant custom option notes as explained in the article How do I use the Custom Options for my Big Cartel theme?