Tip: How to Accessorize Product Mockups

Making mock-ups helps manufacturers visualize how art looks on products and is a good marketing technique that many artists use. Whether mock-ups are created digitally and look realistic or sketched and not look realistic does not matter. All that is needed is to show how the art looks on different kinds of products. For some product mock-ups, it helps if they are accessorized so that there is no guess work in their use. Below is an explanation on how I accessorized some product mock-ups.

Shown is a mock-up of bathroom products with my coastal art. If I did not have tissue sticking out of the box, a toothbrush out of the jar, and a spout on top of the second jar it would be difficult to know the intended use of the shapes. The tissue box was created in Photoshop using the techniques that is shown in "Photoshop Tip - Using the Transform Command for Product Mock-ups" and "Photoshop Tip - Creating Gift Bag Mockups." While in Photoshop I created a slot on top of the box mock-up, took a digital photo of actual tissue, edited the photo, and placed it on top of the tissue box to accessorize the mock-up.

For the tooth brush holder, I created the jar shape and mapped the art onto it while in Adobe Illustrator by using the techniques shown in "Illustrator Tip: Mockups - Creating Uniue 3D Product Shapes." I took a picture of a generic shaped toothbrush, edited it in Photoshop, imported the jar that I created in Illustrator, added holes to the top of the jar, and placed the brush into one hole. The soap/hand lotion dispenser was essentially done the same way. In this case, I took a picture of a generic spout, edited it in Photoshop and placed it on top of the jar that was created in Illustrator.

Warning: If product mock-ups are too realistic looking,manufacturers may think that the art on them have already been licensed. To avoid confusion, I recommend that you use signage stating that the art is available for licensing.