When creating designs for clients, it’s pretty hard to wing the process of drafting mock-ups. Allow us to aid you in that endeavor and show you tips and tricks to showcase your design effectively.
What’s Up Mock-Up?
Every graphic designer has had the pleasure of working with clients that need visuals. Thus, we present them through mock-ups real-life presentations of how the design will look on merchandise.
From t-shirts to mugs to product packaging, your friendly designers create mock-ups to show you how every graphic of your business looks in the real world.
Mock-ups aid in the decision-making process for your final design and allow you to budget ahead for your overall business. But of course, you need to weigh the pros and cons when creating your mock-up.
Let’s get into them.
Advantages:
- Real-Life Representation: When creating a design for products, seeing it in action helps clients make informed decisions. The authenticity of the mock-up determines the view of a product. Plus, the visuals on a website enhance its function, as seen in a mock-up.
- Drafting For A Better Outcome: Since a mock-up is just a draft, you can still tweak it with your mockup generator to receive the outcome you want. Depending on the time needed, though, it could vary. Around 3 hours could suffice for a website, but 5-7 days is the acceptable pace overall.
- Crowdsourced Opinion: Since your graphic design isn’t in its finalization is not yet done, you can still get opinions from the key people who are in charge of getting it up and running. Thus, you are now ready to show your final brand identity after incorporating their comments and suggestions.
Disadvantages:
- Slight Presentation Bias: Sometimes, a photo is not enough since a mock-up simulates a design’s real-world appearance. Sure, a photo works for products. But a website that focuses on functions paired with design needs movement. So does marketing, especially when it comes to interactive ads. Thus, a bias happens because the presentation has a combined explainer. And defeats the purpose of a mock-up—with one look, the design connects with the viewer.
- Not A Prototype: As stated earlier, clients need to see how the website would run, especially website design. And a mock-up needs an accompanying function explainer since it’s not as interactive as a website prototype.
Pros and cons aside, a mock-up is essential to your brand identity/graphic design journey. Follow us as we discuss the different steps to creating the best-fit mock-up for your business.
Drafting Mock-Ups
Sometimes, the creative process is challenging since you don’t know where to start. Thus, let us help you. We listed seven tips to aid you in your creation process.
- Know Thy Medium
- Aim Your Design
- Construct a Mood Board
- Visualization of Overall Design
- Collation of Tools and Graphics
- Present The Project
- Reevaluate and Finalize
1. Know Thy Medium
As stated earlier, there are different aspects of design products. You need to determine your client’s needs from visual identity to website design. Below are some of the examples:
- Advertising
- Art
- Environmental
- Illustration
- Marketing
- Packaging
- Publication
- User Interface (UX & UI)
- Visual Identity
- Website
Know each of their dimensions and the theme of your client/boss so you can jive the two and create the perfect design. Aside from that, ask if it’s printed or online upload since those two have different dimensions.
2. Aim Your Design
Always remember that your mock-up has a purpose. Just because it’s a draft of what could be the final design, it doesn’t mean that you can go around the bush about it.
Be on-point. Hit your target audience with just one look since your goal is to create a first impression that’ll last. Remember that it takes .05 seconds for your graphics to grab the attention of your market (Oberlo).
3. Construct a Mood Board
Applications like Pinterest or GoMoodBoard help you create a graphic that inspires you and gives you ideas to create visuals. It can be anything from related words to related photos. Just compile them.
Every time you feel stuck, look at that mood board and take a break. This action refreshes your mind and allows you to design better.
4. Visualization of Overall Design
Now that you’re inspired and have ideas pouring in try to finalize what you think the design should be. That encompasses materials and a real-world look at where you’ll put the graphic.
It’s great to brainstorm where your market will see the graphics. Aside from that, how big and how much the budget would be for such a design.
After visualizing your final design’s look, you can gather your materials. From tools to photos, get them all.
You also have to think of paid or free software you want to use. Some of the famously used for mock-ups are Photoshop, Mockuuups Studio, Artboard.Studio, Clean Mockup, etc.
All those have free versions except Photoshop. Depending on your style and what you need for your project, choose.
As for graphics, you can download free photos from Pexels, Unplash, etc., to put your visuals on.
6. Present the Project
Finalize your draft and show it to your client/boss. Aside from keeping the mock-up focused, you need to show how the graphic looks in various areas. Make sure to customize it to cater to your client/boss truly.
Aside from those, make sure that the mock-up is in its “final” form. Answer the question, “Where do you see the design in stores, billboards, and maybe even home purchases?”
A great example would be an energy drink drunk by an athlete during a game. Or maybe a watch is worn during a bus ride to work or school. There are many possibilities you could go for presenting your design in its purest form.
7. Reevaluate and Finalize
Always remember that your mock-up is open to improvement. And you’re designing for a client, thus incorporating whatever you can from their comments and finalizing your design.
Check everything before rendering the final product. From the crispness of the image to a color scheme like gradients or other combinations, double-check everything, then submit your final design.
Be The Best in The Business
And there you have it. A mock-up is essential for the start of your branding endeavor. Note that you don’t have to follow the steps in order. As long as you do them at some point, you’re good.
If you’re a designer, don’t miss out on our blogs curated to aid in your design journey. But if you’re a business that requires a designer, you’ve come to the right place.
DesignCrowd is a community of freelance designers you can hire depending on your needs and can give you the mock-up you deserve.
Good luck!
Written by DesignCrowd on Tuesday, March 22, 2022
DesignCrowd is an online marketplace providing logo, website, print and graphic design services by providing access to freelance graphic designers and design studios around the world.