Big banner or mini banner?
Etsy lets you show either a big banner or a mini banner at the top of your shop. The big banner is a wide image, commonly made at 3360 × 840 px (a 4:1 ratio), that spans the full width of the shop page and works like a storefront sign. The mini banner is a slim strip, commonly 1200 × 160 px, that leaves more room for your listings above the fold.
A big banner suits shops with a strong visual brand or a seasonal campaign. A mini banner suits shops where shoppers mainly want to see products straight away. You can switch between them at any time in your shop settings, so it is worth exporting both from the same artwork and seeing which one looks better on your shop.
Designing for very wide proportions
A 4:1 banner is four times wider than it is tall, so most photos lose a large part of their top and bottom when cropped. Choose images with a horizontal composition: a row of products, a flat lay across a table, or a landscape-style scene. Close-up portraits and tall products rarely crop well to banner proportions.
Etsy scales and trims the banner on smaller screens, so the left and right edges are the first to disappear on phones. Keep your shop name, logo, and any short message within the middle third of the image. Leave the edges for background texture that can be lost without harm.
Text, contrast, and file size
If you add text, keep it short and large. A banner is seen at a glance, and small type becomes unreadable when the image is scaled down on a phone. Use strong contrast between text and background, and avoid placing text over a busy part of the photo.
Save photographic banners as JPG to keep the file light. Use PNG only if the banner is mostly flat colour and sharp text, where JPG compression could create fuzzy edges. After uploading, check the shop on both a computer and a phone before you consider the banner finished.
Keeping your branding consistent
Your banner, shop icon, and listing photos are seen together, so they should feel like one shop. Reuse the same colours and fonts across the banner and any graphics, and pick a shop icon (500 × 500 px) that is still recognisable when shown as a small circle. Exporting the banner and icon in one batch makes it easy to keep them matched.