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Creating world-class mock ups

Hello guys, hope everyone is well, healthy and safe and enjoying the course so far. So we received some incredible comments from uh students who had taken the course and who wanted a little bit more of an in depth tutorial on creating mockups and how to do it. So I am going to be creating a separate course to really go in depth in regards to how to create mockups. But what I wanted to do for this course just to help you guys is to create a simple example of what I would do for a real life client. This is a real life client that I'm working with right now and the process that I go through to creating mockups for my concept boards. So I want to go through that with you in this video. I'm not gonna leave anything out. I'm gonna literally let you watch me and how I create the mockups from start to finish. No edits, no shortcuts. I'm gonna let you see everything. So strap in and get ready because we are going to start right now. So I have my concept here. Let me just figure out what's happe...

ning with this. See, I told you there wasn't gonna be any edits or shortcuts. OK, perfect. There we go. So I have my three concepts here and I'm pretty happy with them. OK. Now, for me to create two mockups, I'm just doing two mockups for this particular client because this client only secured a package which included two mock ups in the actual presentation. So um it says symbol here, but this is the actual symbol. I just changed them around a little bit. The next step for me is to choose which mockups I actually want to use. So, and by the way, this file is available on the brand identity development kit, which is included in this course. So if you go to the last lesson in this course, the last one, then you'll be able to find this kit to download. All you need to do is just download this E I file and you get this completely free as part of the course. And this is the exact same concept board that I use for my clients. Now, what I need to choose is I need to choose which mockups to actually use for this particular client. So, you know, I want to choose something which showcases the designs in a nice way. So I'm probably gonna go for this business card and I could do an advertisement, but I think I'll go for brand signage just because it's very icon heavy. So each of the actual logos have, you know, distinctive icons. So I want to showcase this in a really simple way. I want the icons to shine, but I also want to showcase the um the actual full logo as well. So obviously, we have the full logo, we have the word mark and then we have the icon, this is their branding system. So depending on where the logo is gonna be used and which environment it's in, that is the logo that's gonna be used. So for example, this will be used in an advertisement on the back of a business card. For example, this may be used on uh you know, maybe clothing or something. For example, like this is the full logo here, this is the word mark here. And then this, for example, here could be the the actual icon. It doesn't really work like that. These guys don't have actually have an icon, but these do so this brand does. So I want to showcase the icon on its own without anything else, which is great um and done very well with the brand signage example, which I'll show you in a little bit. So let's do that now actually. So let's go to the, the brand identity development kit, go to the mock up set signage and we can go to kinda like I kinda like this one because it kind of looks like it kind of looks like a gym or something. And this is a, a fitness brand. So I kind of like the fact that it's kind of, uh, looks, looks a little bit kind of fitness related. So, what I'm gonna do is because it's fairly simple. This is the template that I use when I'm adding a logo to the actual mock up. So all I do is just go up to. Yeah. Well, let's just select these. Actually. It's a lot easier. Oh, I haven't actually had that. Oh, yeah, I have sorry, go down here. Ok. Now all I need to do is just literally bring those a little bit closer and then just make them the right size. So just get them all sized up nicely. So yeah, maybe a little bit bigger actually just to get them roughly where I need them. So this one's going to be the easiest because it's actually round, OK, ideal and this one. So I'm just using the circle in the background. It's kind of like a kind of like a guide at the moment. And if you're wondering why I'm stacking these on top of each other, all will be revealed very soon just for efficiency, to be honest, because I'm uh wanting to arrange this for the claim as soon as possible. Ok. There we go. So yeah, that works. Neither changes are actually it is not centered. Ok. Perfect. Now we can center, center, everything, make sure everything is nice and centered. There we go. Perfect. So now basically what I have is I have everything on this square, which is part of the mockups dimensions, right? So as long as I put everything in the middle of that square, then everything should fingers crossed, hopefully look quite good when we put it on the actual mockup. So let's just perfect. Good, good, good. Right. We're good. Right. Let's um let's dive into the mock up now. Should be downloaded. Perfect. And they should only take you about 5, 10 minutes. Um You know, you shouldn't take a huge amount of time on mockups. Although when you get to the phase where you are actually, you know, creating, you know, mockups for your client with the finished concept and also, you know, kind of making the, the mockups for your portfolio, your online portfolio. Sometimes I take hours creating like a full home page just for a website mockup. It's worth it because, you know, you really need to showcase your work in the best way possible. So for example, I'll just take uh I'll just take this, that's there's one all done, nice and efficient, that's two and then just delete that and there's three. So now all I need to do these should be ready to go like size wise, these should be ready to go size wise. So I just put paste them on top of that. There we go past it on top save and there we go, we're pretty much there. Now, the thing that I don't like about some of the mockups is sometimes you need to heighten the intensity of them a little bit. So this is pretty realistic, but I kind of like to have my colors popping a little bit more. And the way to do that is sometimes they have adjustments on here where you can kind of make the um, make the layer. Maybe this is a, maybe this is a little bit of a no, it's not really working. OK. We'll just leave that as it is. So sometimes they have like a um like a highlight um layer where you can reduce the highlight from 100% opacity to maybe 30 to 40%. And that makes the actual um you know, logo stand out a little bit more and it makes it look a little bit more saturated. But for this example, it's um it's not actually the case. So it doesn't actually have that. So another way we can do that is just simply by exporting, exporting this J peg, we don't need a 4000, we can make it around 2500. I think that's going to be more than enough exploit. Yeah, so just put a concept one just to keep things organized. I know there's like this tendency to just kind of label in anything but uh yeah, just try and stay as organized as possible. It's uh you actually end up going a lot faster over the long run. So next one, let's just get all these bashed out nice and easy. So again, if you, if you work smart, then you can get, you can get these arranged like super, super quick and it doesn't, it just looks super like super nice to have these, you know, included in your brand's presentation concept. Two. Again, just sitting the desktop for now and then I'll show you kind of my workflow. I'm not sure if it's the best workflow, but this is the workflow that I use. Um you might have a better one or, or one that works better for you, but this is the one that works for me and that, you know, my clients are generally quite happy. Ok? So see here how this kind of looks a little bit too big to me. Do you know what I mean? Looks a little bit like it's leaning towards that side a little bit, which I don't really like. So what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna pull this down just slightly and I'm gonna just do it by, just by eye just to see what it looks like. Ok. So now it's a little bit further up there. Mm Maybe it needs to be a little bit smaller so you need to catch those things sometimes because one of the things which a lot of designers do, for example, let me go back to this and I'll just show you, I'm forgetting the actual name of this particular theory or rule. But basically, if I take this logo, OK, let me just take the whole thing and I'll just show you because this is a really great lesson which I tell a lot of the students that work with us and who have joined our membership program at Lancaster Academy of Design and brand. Not a lot of these guys actually know this. And it's quite surprising because it's one of the first lessons I learned when I was learning about graphic design like 10 years ago. So for example, if I center this logo on the square, it's not dead in the center when I present it to the client. So why is that? Because when we put it dead in the center? So mathematically in the center, it looks like it's actually a lot lower than it should be. So this looks more central, this looks more central than this because although mathematically this one is correct, this one is actually optimally correct. So our eyes are perceiving this in the correct way. So the center line is just a guide. So what I always do is I always knock it up. So for example, I would always go to like that roughly, I mean, I can just kind of do it from I and you'll be able to do it after a couple of times. But like if you, if you really wanna, you know, make sure just center it. So its center it and then just knock it up by, you know, a little bit. There you go. It, it looks 10 times better because our eyes are automatically drawn to this level as opposed to, you know, this, which basically looks like it's sinking to the bottom. We don't want that. So keep that in mind for next time because it works on like websites. It's, it's the same design in principle for presentations, for mockups to everything. So if you can just do that one thing it's got and if you're not doing it already, then it's gonna be um it's gonna be a, you know, a really simple game changer for you. So I'm gonna make this a little bit smaller because I'm not happy with how much space that's actually taking. So that looks a little bit better. There's still a little bit more space. So I'm gonna heighten it a little bit. So again, using your eye is actually really important in design. So never just take things as gospel, like mathematically, this looks a lot better. OK. See how this looks a lot better. OK. Let's explore it now. Ok. Ok. Ok. And then we should be good to go to the next ditch of concept. 344. There we go. Ok. Perfect. Ok. So we've done that. We've got all out there. I'm gonna save this just so I have it and then I'm going to add all of concepts to the I file. OK? So now we've got this, what I need to do is I want to make sure that they are embedded because sometimes, for example, if you create incredible mockups, then you don't save them, you add them to the eye board and they're not embedded. So usually sometimes it'll say, um you know, sorry, I'm not going to do that, but I was, I was going to show you what happened when you put a file in the A I file and it isn't embedded already. But for some reason when you just drag the file in it embeds it automatically, which is great, but always check to make sure your images are embedded because if they're not, then you're going to lose them and they're going to basically be all fuzzy and it's just, it's a nightmare. It's horrible when that happens. So we need to make sure that these pop a little bit more because at the moment they look a little bit pale, they look a little bit kind of worn out and kind of washed out, to be honest. So what we wanna do is we wanna just go to really simple, go to saturate. We're gonna put about 9% 10% 10% a nice round number, see what it looks like and it looks, looks good. I think we're gonna knock another 2% on that 2 3% just to see what it looks like. Yeah. Oh, can we get a little bit more in there. Can we get a little bit more in there? I think, I think it's getting there but I think just three more percent it's gonna be 16. Might be the magic number. Ok, cool. OK. So we've got this now let's just get these all around the same size we can get that into. Yeah, just organize this up. So we want that kind of again, not, not in the center but just above center. Perfect. Perfect, perfect. And then we can just add these, get these all the same. Oh, just knocked it out again. There we go. And then all we, all we need to do is just basically drag these into the center of each and then we've got them, they're good to go and it's got a lot great. I'm not sure what's happened here. But, uh, ah, that's what's happened, that's what's happened. That's why, that's the thing that I deleted when I first started the video. See I told you guys no edits. I'm not editing anything. I'm showing you my exact workflow so you can see how terrible it is. Yeah, I'm certainly not perfect when it comes to work. So I could definitely be better. But yeah, I think, um, no, I'm, I'm not too bad. I'm not too bad. Ok. So I'm just gonna add this. Ok. That's pretty central. All good. Again, I'm just doing things by eye. I'm not doing things you know, mathematically correct. I'm just doing it by eye so I can actually learn how to do things from instinct as opposed to, uh, and, you know, if I get it wrong then, you know, I'll just, you know, take it back out and do it again. Not a big deal, not a big deal. You learn how to use your instincts and just get things done instead of, you know, centering everything and, you know, just doing things mathematically, it's not always the best way. OK? Cool. So I'm pretty happy with that. I'm pretty happy with that. I could probably uh like saying that I think we could probably take if I'm, if I'm comparing this orange with this orange, it's quite a bright color. So I, I don't know if I'm gonna kill it, but if I, if I make a mistake, I'll just, I'll just drag it back. It's not a big deal. It OK? I think it's too much. I think it's too much. We're gonna drag it back. We're gonna do a six and then we're gonna leave it there. I think so. Let's just do it. And this is the thing about design guys, like you can't be scared. 55555 is the magic number guys. That's the one. Ok, perfect. So we've got that there. That looks good. Awesome. So with design with creating mockups, you have to allow yourself to feel, you have to allow yourself to do things wrong to explore ideas, which are not necessarily the best ideas because you could learn something. If you give yourself the, the freedom to feel and to do things wrong, then you can learn more quickly. You learn very little from success, but you learn a lot from failure. And I honestly feel like if I took this approach and I kind of let myself feel a lot more, then I probably have learned a lot quicker and it wouldn't have took me so long to, to kind of get to where I am today where I'm, you know, kind of, you know, charging what I'm charging and also working with the level of clients that I'm that I'm working with. I think that if you can have the the bravery because you know, it just take a little bit of bravery, then you know, you can get a lot further, a lot faster. So, ok, we have this mocked up now. That's all good. Perfect. Perfect, perfect. So because I I'm probably not gonna need this anymore. I'm gonna save this because this is my V one file. So what I don't want to do is to basically save this file and have my original file, which I'll show you again. Uh ba ba ba ba lots and lots of files, guys, I apologize. I'm in the middle of creating new courses. So my desktop is a mess. So the mock up set, obviously, there's lots of different mock ups that you can use. There's gonna be more that's added and I'll keep adding them as time goes on. But in regards to the file, I want to keep these files clean so I can work efficiently, right? I've just literally made those three mock ups in like 57 minutes, right? So it's really important that you keep your files organized, you keep them arranged so that you can do. You know, for example, here V two, I know exactly which file I want download this that I can get started on the actual design. OK? So for the actual design, let's pull down the logos for each. OK? OK. Then let's go. What can we do for this? What can we do? That's fun. Yeah. Can we do that? What, what's that, what's that saying that people see when they go to the gym, right? Uh What is it work out? Recover, sleep repeat? That's pretty cool, right? No, you don't think so. Maybe you trust me. OK. Then we're gonna put um the guy is called Steven. Oh And we'll put a found it. Then I'll put uh Steve at versus two. There's three different names. So my recovery.com, I recover, recover, better recover better.com. You can obviously put, you know, Apex, you can put like the three separate brand names obviously, but I'm just showing you, I'm just showing you this for, for quickness. So this for example would just be like, you know, Yeah, phone number and then this would be, I don't know, uh, whatever. And then for this I usually put like an address here for some reason. So, I don't know. Um, not recovery. Let's do something else. Um, Muscle. Oh God, why have I spelled Muscle like that? That is not how you spell. Muscle guys do not come to me for spelling lessons. Muscle Lane Workington. I don't know what I'm doing, to be honest. Um Sr 69 RB England, that's the guy from England. So, ok, maybe dress the. There we go. That looks a little bit bad. Ok, pretty happy with that. I think that that could be a little bit. Uh, let's do the same with these as well because that is pretty. There we go. That looks a lot better. Make sure this is ok. Perfect good. Now we are here. We've got all this here. Now we should get this. What's happening? Well, I think it's raining. Is it raining outside? Let me just check. I thought it was my air conditioning just about a blow and it's literally raining stupidly hard outside. I'm not sure if you can hear that, but it's literally like thunder and lightning. So, yeah, hopefully you can still hear me and it isn't too distracting. But, uh, yeah, sorry about that interruption again. No edits. I'm not editing anything. I wanna do. Keep this as organic as possible. So once you have that, um, I'm going to probably go for black. I think black just looks really cool. You could do it, you could do it white. You let's do it, let's do it white. Let's be a little bit uh a little bit crazy there. So we'll do the, the front white and we'll do the back glasses but around. Ok, good. Get this off. Good stuff. So now we have the logos, et cetera. So these are sized for that particular version. So V two, these are the sizes for this particular version. I open that these, these should just slot straight in the business card. One reopen this. Uh we take this for example. So let's just take these. Oh excuse me, let's see this for example, we we could do it with all of them to be honest, but there we go and then we just need to size all of the logos to make sure everything's good. What's the right size for all of these? Oh, let's get these in front actually. There we go. It looks pretty cool. Again, we're not doing it in the center. Are we we're doing it just above the center. Remember that? See the valuable lesson because honestly not, you'd be surprised how many designers don't actually know that sort of thing. You might actually know it and you might be thinking Scott, why are you such a uh idiot like I've known that forever but not a lot of designers know that like, especially if you're just starting out and it's a, it's a lesson which not a lot of people teach because it's kind of like a, like a thing that you are often left to figure out by yourself. Although, although there are some really good um influences on the likes of Instagram and stuff, I saw some really good um you know, graphic design influences and mentors. Yeah, I really like this logo for some reason, I don't know why I really love how the the angle of this particular icon is matched exactly with the uh the typography. I kind of love that. I think the client's gonna write this one as well. OK, cool. So we've got, we've got this, it's not in the center is it, it's kind of a little bit out. But again, you have to do this by eye as well. So don't just put it dead in the center, do it by eye. He's not always right. Well, it's always right, but for example, when you're like that, like that tiny little registration mark is going to impact. So let me just actually show you because I want to kind of do this as in depth as possible to really help. But these tiny little things make a huge difference to like the overall look and feel of the actual mockups and just your branding overall. So for example, if I center this, I'm not sure how center this is going to be, to be honest, OK? So it's a little bit off center, right? So this here when I center this, OK, this here is mathematically centered, but the weight of the actual logo is not the same, the entire weight. If the weight is exactly the same from start to finish like this like this, then you can do something like that and it, and it makes sense, but the weight of this end and the weight of this end is not the same because of that little arm mark. So you need to push it a little bit to the left to make it look like it's in the center because you're not actually working with the whole mark. You're, you're kind of, you have to weigh optimally uh uh you have to weigh it optically, not optimally, you need to wait optimally optically. I was a little bit of a tongue twister. But anyway, so make sure you do that, make sure you are doing things um with your eyes and not just using these tools and being lazy with it again. Like I didn't even realize that I did that, but it's just like you need to get others becoming a habit of putting things just above the center, weighing things up in your eyes and just not just like centering everything because it makes a huge difference guys. So let's start placing these into the actual mockup and seeing how they look again. We're not taking anything for granted. These might not look good but we are uh tell how much I use Photoshop. I'm not on Photoshop very much. But yeah, so that fits in nicely good stuff. Ok. No, doesn't look too bad and then we can get this. Oh, no, sorry. This one. Ok, so we've got this, got this. Oh, why are my colors getting all? Wash it out? I can just call this one. Right? Perfect. OK. We got this. I think this will look better in the in the kind of the the trademark orange. That was pretty cool. Yeah, and now I don't know if this will look better in degree or not. Let's see. That looks pretty good. That looks cool. I like that and I think recover because this is a recovery product. I think this could look pretty cool if we highlight this is orange bam. Look at that. It's pretty cool. No, I like that. OK, let's put this on here. Yep. OK. So now we got this, we got that everything is looking pretty sharp. Let's check it out. OK? It looks pretty cool. It looks pretty cool. It's not too bad. So now all we need to do is um finish things off with this. I'm just going to and again guys listen, my workflow, there's probably better people to to learn from in regards to workflow, but this is just how I do things I can pro there's still a lot for me to learn in regards to workflow and working more efficiently. But, you know, I, I get, I get the work done pretty fast and I'm pretty happy with, you know, how much, you know, time it takes me to actually in something like this. But, you know, if you, if you want to really learn how to, uh, you know, work super, super efficient, I'm, you know, I'm not the worst person to learn from, but I'm certainly not the best. So yeah, just to keep that in mind. So we have our first one complete. I'm going to export that. Uh We don't need it at 4000 at all. We're doing a 2000 just to keep it as good quality. Explore. Yeah. Export, sorry, export. It's got a little bit me here. So concept concert concept one bi concept one for bits. OK? Right now let's breeze through these. We've got this one. Excuse me, we've got this one. Let's breeze through this one. OK. Let's add this over here. Yeah, that's this logo. Actually, I didn't like this logo as much in the beginning, but it's actually grown on me a little bit. Concept three was my favorite. I think this one's kind of grown on me a little bit for some reason. I don't know why. But let's see. Let's see which one the client likes best because that's what's most important, right? OK. There we go. I want to explore this one. Support. Us should be still in it. 2000 yep, export again. There you go out and just change this far more efficient. Then I don't have to misspell concept again and look like idiot. OK? And the next one, last one, guys, last one and we're almost there if you want anything else added to this course because this lesson was added because of the student specifically reaching out and needing more guidance in regards to their, you know, mock up process. If you need any additional help, let me know and I'll add the course, I'll screen a call, something like this just in case you need the help. I want to make sure that you have all the guidance that you need to be the best that you can possibly be and really create great mockups and you know, great brands overall. So let me know. So I'm here to help. Ok. Now, obviously, in regards to this as well, like if I, if I was really doing this for like my um portfolio or something, then I would take the time to, you know, change all of these letters to match the actual, you know, the logo and stuff. I'll do that in the next phase. Once we actually decide the logo, I'm not going to go into too much depth, creating, you know, super, super intense and super detailed mockups just for this phase in the process. Because at the moment, we're just choosing the actual logo design. We're not, you know, kind of, we haven't decided on it yet. So this is just to kind of show how the logo will live and breathe in different environments so that when the client chooses it, then we can start to really develop the um you know, the really high details and you know, super, super impressive um mockups. But this should give you an idea in regards to kind of how you can do it for a client. Ok, perfect. Don't see it. So you don't need it. But yeah, so like if you wanted like a really in depth mockup tutorial where I literally go through every single stage, then let me know and I'm I'm more than happy to, to record that. It's gonna be a couple of hours because if you, if you really want to do a problem and it does take a quite a bit of time and I'm more than happy to do that if that will help you. So just let me know, don't try that again. I'm not even sure what that's asking me for, but it's fine. Ok? So these are, these are embedded. So again, always check that and make sure they're embedded because if they're not, then there's a whole heap of trouble afterwards. So this is a little bit small, I think. So, what I'm gonna do is I'm going to probably add this, that I'm gonna add them. Yeah, it actually looks a little bit, um, know the blurry for some reason. That one looks all right, but this one looks a little bit, little bit, little bit blurry. Maybe it's because the 2000 is a little bit small. I mean, it's not, it's not really gonna show up on the, um, on the, the final file, but it's, um, yeah, keep an eye on that sort of thing. So the last thing you wanna do is to send a, a client, you know, blurry mockups. It's not gonna be a great uh a great impression. OK? So make sure you can see all the designs, line, line them all up. I thought again, it doesn't need to be, you know, super, super perfect. Don't, don't spend too much time on this sort of thing, but there you go. OK, I'm happy with that and then I can just uh add them in see what they look like. That looks good. That's good. That looks good. Perfect. I'm gonna add all these a bit of them all ideal and that's pretty much, that's pretty much it. So, I mean with this uh OK, one last thing guys, one last thing before I let you go, make sure that the saturation is correct. So the moment these don't seem very, I think this one's a little bit brighter than the other one. So I don't think it needs as much. These are quite blurry. So what I'm probably gonna do is I'm probably gonna redo these and um and just export it as a larger file because for some reason, it's uh it's came out and it came out a little bit blurry. So yeah, as I said, there's no editing or anything for these. It's literally just um you know, me just showing you exactly how I do things, but I think I'm gonna export these again and um and do them a little bit bigger because at the moment, if you can see here, they're a little bit blurry around the outlines. So I would just say I'm going to export them again as 4000 and then re add them to the presentations, ok? So once I finish this and I re export them and everything, I'm going to basically add these to an email and send them over to the client and just ask them for their thoughts, ok? But I hope you found this video and quick little lesson helpful. And if you want any more super in depth lessons on any aspect of the calls, please let me know I'm here to help. I'm here to support, I'm here to, you know, add as much context as possible and ultimately support you to, you know, be the best designer, the best brand development manager, the best brand developer that you can possibly be. And you know, if I can help in any way, then I am 100% up for doing that. So let me know send me a message, send me an email. Um you know, anything that you want just get in touch with me and let me know. Ok. God bless, have an amazing evening and thank you so much for sticking around till the end of the lesson. I appreciate it.