Rubik Variant Images on Pixel Union Themes: Empire, Atlantic, Grid & Tailor (2026)
Pixel Union has been building Shopify themes since the early days of the platform. They are now part of the Tiny family (which also owns Dribbble), and their themes power thousands of stores across every vertical. If you are running Empire, Atlantic, Grid, Reach, Editions, or Tailor, Rubik Variant Images supports all of them.
Pixel Union also has about 5 retired themes that are no longer available for new purchases but still run on existing stores. We support those too. If your store uses an older PU theme like Starter, Handy, or Launch, Rubik will still detect it and filter your product gallery correctly. That matters, because retired themes never get updates, so compatibility needs to be rock-solid from day one.
We tested every Pixel Union theme individually. Their themes share some structural patterns (they all use similar JavaScript patterns for gallery rendering), but the product page layouts differ enough that each needs its own detection config. This post walks through the active themes one by one.
In this post
- Pixel Union overview
- Empire
- Atlantic
- Grid
- Reach
- Editions
- Tailor
- Comparison table
- Setup
- Pairing with Rubik Combined Listings
- FAQ
- Related reading
Pixel Union: the Tiny/Dribbble connection
Pixel Union is a Canadian theme studio that has been in the Shopify ecosystem longer than most. They were acquired by Tiny, a holding company that also owns Dribbble, MetaLab, and several other design-focused businesses. This means their themes benefit from a larger design and engineering team than most indie studios can afford.
Their active lineup focuses on different store sizes and styles. Empire targets high-volume stores with lots of products. Atlantic works well for lifestyle and fashion. Grid is built for visual-first brands. They have a consistent approach to code quality, which makes our job easier when writing detection code. But each theme still has unique gallery structures that need individual handling.
One thing I appreciate about Pixel Union themes: their JavaScript is generally clean and well-documented compared to some theme studios where reading the gallery code feels like archaeology. Does that directly affect merchants? No. But it means when something breaks, we can fix it faster.
Empire
Empire is designed for stores with large catalogs. Think 500+ products, multiple collections, heavy navigation. The product page uses a two-column layout with a stacked thumbnail gallery on the left and product details on the right.
Rubik detects Empire automatically and filters the thumbnail stack when a customer selects a variant. Empire has a unique feature where thumbnails can be displayed in a grid pattern below the main image (instead of stacked vertically). Rubik works with both layouts. The filtering is instant because all data comes from metafields that load with the page. No external API calls.
Empire is also one of the few Pixel Union themes that supports product tabs. Your image assignments work regardless of whether you use tabs or a standard layout. Why does this matter? Because some apps break when the gallery is rendered inside a tab container that starts hidden. Rubik does not.
Atlantic
Atlantic has been around for years and remains one of the more popular Pixel Union themes. It has a clean, minimal aesthetic with a focus on product photography. The gallery uses a single main image with thumbnail navigation below.
The variant selector in Atlantic defaults to dropdown menus. Rubik replaces these with visual swatches (image thumbnails, color circles, or pill buttons, your choice) and handles the gallery filtering simultaneously. This is one of those themes where adding Rubik makes the product page feel like a completely different experience. Dropdowns for color selection in 2026? Come on.
Atlantic supports multiple product page layouts through its theme settings. We have tested Rubik on all of them. The stacked layout, the slideshow layout, and the thumbnail layout all work correctly with variant image filtering.
Grid
Grid is Pixel Union’s visual-first theme. It uses a masonry-style product gallery that displays images in an asymmetric grid. This looks great for stores with varied image aspect ratios, but it creates an interesting challenge for variant image filtering.
When you filter images by variant, the grid needs to reflow. An 8-image grid filtered down to 3 images looks different than the original layout. Rubik handles this correctly on Grid, recalculating the masonry positions so there are no gaps or broken layouts after filtering. We spent more time on Grid’s masonry recalculation than on most other themes combined, honestly.
Grid also supports image zoom on hover. Rubik preserves this functionality after filtering. Zooming into a variant-specific image works exactly as expected.
Reach
Reach is positioned for growing brands. It sits somewhere between Atlantic’s simplicity and Empire’s feature density. The product gallery uses a horizontal carousel with dot navigation.
Rubik filters the carousel slides when a variant is selected. The dot count updates to match the filtered image count. If “Blue” has 4 images and “Green” has 6, switching between them adjusts the carousel length and navigation indicators. No stale dots pointing to images that are not there anymore.
Editions
Editions targets stores that sell curated collections, gift shops, and boutique retailers. Its product page uses a clean gallery with a featured image and supporting thumbnails. The overall design is less dense than Empire but more structured than Atlantic.
Rubik works with Editions without any special configuration. Install, enable the app embed, assign your images, done. The gallery filtering follows Editions’ native transition animations.
Tailor
Tailor is one of Pixel Union’s newer themes. It is designed to be highly customizable, with modular sections that merchants can rearrange. The product page gallery supports multiple layouts: slideshow, stacked, and thumbnail strip.
Because Tailor offers so many layout permutations, we had to test Rubik against all of them. The variant image filtering works in every Tailor gallery layout. Swatches inject correctly regardless of where the variant selector is positioned on the page. Tailor’s modular approach means merchants sometimes move the variant picker to unusual positions, and Rubik adapts to that.
Pixel Union themes comparison
| Theme | Gallery style | Best for | Rubik status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Empire | Stacked thumbnails, tabs | Large catalogs | Fully supported |
| Atlantic | Main image + thumbnails | Fashion, lifestyle | Fully supported |
| Grid | Masonry grid | Visual brands | Fully supported |
| Reach | Horizontal carousel | Growing brands | Fully supported |
| Editions | Featured + thumbnails | Boutiques, gift shops | Fully supported |
| Tailor | Modular (multiple layouts) | Customizable stores | Fully supported |
Setup steps
- Install Rubik Variant Images from the Shopify App Store.
- Enable the app embed: Theme editor, App embeds, toggle on Rubik Variant Images.
- Pick a product in the Rubik app. Click a variant and assign images to it by dragging.
- Try AI auto-assign if you prefer. The app analyzes product titles, variant names, filenames, and alt text to match images. One product at a time.
- Save and check. Open the product page, switch variants, confirm the gallery filters correctly.
For bulk setup across hundreds of products, use bulk assign. It processes products in the background using image order, not filenames. Full walkthrough: show only selected variant images.
See the live demo store, watch the setup tutorial, or read the getting started guide.
Pairing with Rubik Combined Listings
Rubik Variant Images works on the product page only. That is deliberate. Collection page swatches, product grouping, and linking separate products as variants are handled by a separate app: Rubik Combined Listings.
Why separate apps? Because they solve different problems. RVI filters the gallery for existing Shopify variants. RCL links separate products together so each color gets its own URL, own inventory, own SEO juice. Trying to cram both into one app would mean forcing merchants to pay for features they might not need. Stores with simple variants only need RVI. Stores that split colors into separate products need RCL. Stores that do both need both.
Both apps work together on all Pixel Union themes without conflicts. Read more about how they complement each other on the combined listings guide. And for broader Shopify strategy around variant limits and catalog architecture, the 2026 variant limit guide on Craftshift is worth reading.
“I’ve been using this app for awhile now, so I can confidently give this 5 stars. It’s everything I wanted and more. I had one small bug show up and Umid found and fixed it within 2 minutes… seriously. Don’t hesitate on adding this to your store!”
Anonymous merchant, 5-star review, November 2025 – Rubik Variant Images on the Shopify App Store
Frequently asked questions
Does Rubik work with all Pixel Union themes?
Yes. All 6 active Pixel Union themes (Empire, Atlantic, Grid, Reach, Editions, Tailor) are fully supported. Retired PU themes that are still running on existing stores are also supported.
I am using an old retired Pixel Union theme. Will Rubik still work?
Yes. We maintain detection code for retired themes as long as merchants are using them. If you encounter an issue, our support team can adjust the theme selectors manually.
Does Rubik work with Grid’s masonry layout?
Yes. Rubik recalculates the masonry grid positions after filtering images. The grid reflows correctly with no blank spaces or broken layouts.
Can I use image, color, and pill swatches on Pixel Union themes?
Yes. Rubik supports image swatches, color swatches, and pill buttons. You can mix types per option (e.g., image swatches for Color, pills for Size). Swatch styles are rendered in Shadow DOM, so they never conflict with your Pixel Union theme CSS.
What is the pricing?
Free: $0/month, 1 product. Starter: $25/month, 100 products. Advanced: $50/month, 1,000 products. Premium: $75/month, unlimited. All plans include AI credits for auto-assign.
Does Empire’s product tab layout work with Rubik?
Yes. Rubik works correctly even when the product gallery is rendered inside Empire’s tab container. Some apps break in tabbed layouts because the gallery starts hidden. Rubik does not have this issue.
Related reading
