The Free Mockups Guide to Create the Absolute Best Picture

Finding the absolute best mockup to represent your clothing, your business cards, and your packaging can totally be a game changer, yet it can also be quite resource-intensive, as experiments can add up.

Fortunately, there is an ocean of free high-quality mockups available through the magic of the Internet that allow you to present yourself in an eye-catching way – all at no cost to you. We’re going to get into how to locate and develop those free mockups and more in today’s guide.

Helpful Resources for Designers

Our goal is to produce a wow effect among our audience without shedding a dime, so here are the top tools for doing that. 

GIMP

In order to edit your mockup, one essential thing you’ll need is an image editor. The GNU Image Manipulation Program (or GIMP) is a powerful, free, open-source image editing software. It provides almost the full range of bells and whistles that Photoshop does – layers, masks, and filters – the works, without requiring you to shell out for a subscription. On top of that GIMP doesn’t bring with it the same steep learning curve.

Fontsquirrel

When we’re talking about mockups, fonts usually play a huge role in their design and presentation. The font captures the tone, style, and message that the brand is projecting, and while we’re using free programs, we want to look like a million bucks. The program has hand-picked fonts that meet its quality and readability standards and its Font Generator tool allows designers to turn fonts web-friendly to ensure they render properly. Designers get to use it for commercial purposes free of charge.

YellowImages

Of course, we are going to need original mockup files. There are a lot of sources that can be used to obtain free mockup files, one of which is YellowImages. It has a breadth of free mockup images available, including crop tops, packages, t-shirts, bottles, smartphones, business cards, flyers, posters, slippers, bracelets, and handbags. You can download them, open them in GIMP as a PSD or a JPEG, edit them right away, and test them.

Personal Success Story Using Free Mockups

Even if you don’t end up getting the best mockup in the world, something flashy is a lot better than nothing, and you can test different elements and play with different special effects to see what is generating the most interest among your customers or target audience. 

A real-world example of someone who has used mockups to help put his best foot forward is Ryan Magin, a digital marketer who made millions and amassed over one hundred thousand Instagram subscribers with his GoPro. He has tested images of different types over and over, learned which sell the best, and determined which give him the most attention online.

Behance Design Community

One of the most valuable tools, especially when you are just starting out as a designer or an artist, is having a community of like-minded individuals. You can gain a great wealth of knowledge, experience, and contacts from doing so, and, like everything else in this guide, that comes at absolutely zero cost to you. Whether or not you’re a designer, you can showcase your work and gain inspiration from a large breadth of ideas, which may affect the direction you end up taking with your clothing, packaging, or other product mockups. You’ll also learn simply how to design better and people will give you feedback on how you’re doing. Forbes reports that Adobe has set up a similar community to foster creativity as well – Firefly.

Free Mockups vs Paid Mockups

While you may or may not have a choice due to your current budget restraints, it may be worth looking at what opportunities you will enjoy while using free mockups as opposed to paid ones.  Let’s take a look at how certain aspects will compare.

Quality comparison

When you’re just starting out, free mockups are amazing. Sometimes you may just need to publish something, and fast. The drawback to that is the quality of free images is very hit or miss. While you can dig up mockups that absolutely blow you away, you also discover an awful lot of lackluster art. These are often done by amateurs or hobbyists. They also often are done in a low resolution. As for paid mockups, they’re more often done by some people with some moxy, and are always high-resolution, clean, and crisp, with attention to detail.

Variety

On most websites, where you see huge mockup databases, only a small number of them still tend to be free, which also means that a lot of people may be using them. It also means that your design may end up being on the generic side. When it comes to that really specialized design that seems was made specifically with your vision in mind, you’ll find that those tend to be overwhelmingly fee-based.

Customization

The range of free customization options is usually quite limited when you’re not paying. Though you can still add logos and change the colors, it may not feature the level of detail you need for intricate edits. Paid mockups typically have a lot more layers that can be adjusted – the lighting, the background, the textures, and more. 

Licensing and usage rights

A lot of free mockups come with restrictive licensing. While some do allow you to use the mockups for commercial purposes, a lot of them do not allow any more than personal use for them. Always be sure to check the licensing. With paid mockups, you have peace of mind.

Time and convenience

Though if you look hard enough, you can eventually find some impressive free mockups, this will certainly come with the tradeoff of a time investment. You will have to filter through a lot of paid options and free options before you are finally satisfied with one of the free options. They also often require more effort to adapt to your project. Meanwhile, paid ones are ready to use and be integrated right out of the box.

Economic benefit

Also keep in mind that if you are engaging in the mockups for the sake of profit, you may be significantly limiting your profit-making ability as you won’t be marketing your products with the same impact that you can with superior paid images. That may call into question whether free images are in fact cheaper. 

Forbes explored how to achieve greater satisfaction with your business as well, which is also important. 

Just getting your feet wet

While paid mockups offer the most benefits to professional designers, agencies, and companies engaged in sales, that doesn’t mean it’s everybody’s best option. Some people are just working on personal projects for fun. They may be just testing the waters or running a small-scale operation without much of a budget to speak of yet.

Everyone knows their own situation and what suits them best.