If you’re looking for ways to earn from your designs, paintings and drawings, create product mockups as the best way to get them on products from A to Z, using a business models like Digital Products and Print on Demand.

If you have an eCommerce store like Etsy, Shopify or WooCommerce, you can earn from your designs by (1) creating products that can be sold digitally and (2) by placing them on a wide variety of products with print on demand services like Printful and Printify. Both of these models are popular ways to earn passive income.

Affiliate Disclaimer: This page may contain affiliate links. If you use these links to make a purchase, I will receive a small commission. However, using these links will have no effect on you or your purchase in any way. For more information refer to our disclaimer page.

What is a Product Mockup?

A product mockup is a model of what your final product will look like. Product mockups are frequently used to present a final product in a real-life context to customers and clients to help them understand how an item might look in their environment. .

The main role of mockups is the visual design element, which solidifies the product’s color schemes, images and typography.

In the case of apparel, you want to give potential buyers an idea of how the item looks flat as well as how it looks on models.

Think of mockups as a means of showing off what your design will actually look like when it's placed out into the real world.

Making Mockups

To sell print on demand products, first you will need to create designs in your favorite image editing programs. Programs like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator or Canva are popular for design creation. 

in formats that make them easily transformed into image files that can be used to create products from t-shirts to home décor.

Once the designs are scanned into your computer, they will need to be uploaded and placed on the items you can sell in your store.

With affordable scanning equipment, like the HP OfficeJet Pro 6978 All-in-One Wireless Printer,  or the HP Scanjet Pro 2000 s2, your designs can be sent to your computer and saved in formats that make them easily transformed into image files that can be used to create products from t-shirts to home décor.

Create Mockups from Scratch

If you're good with your graphic design skills, great with photographer the tools below can be used to create mockups. If you're good at staging products, like the t-shirt shown below you can create product photos. Create apparel or accessory mockups eBooks, catalogs, cards, labels and more. 

Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator is the industry-standard vector graphics app that lets you create logos, icons, drawings, typography, and complex illustrations for any medium. Design packaging, logos, web graphics, and more. The possibilities are endless, just like your imagination. Work on desktop, tablet, or even offline — it’s never been easier to take your creativity to new places.

Adobe Photoshop

With Adobe Photoshop, build your brand, make a meme, or explore your inner artist with the all-in-one tool for creativity. Design posters, flyers, brochures, ads, and more with Photoshop to promote her business.

Adobe InDesign

Create and publish books, digital magazines, eBooks, posters, and interactive PDFs. 

Canva

Canva is a free tool (they also have a paid plan) that can be used to create designs that can be placed on apparel, home decor, book covers and more. We have a complete tutorial on how to use Canva that will help you get started with this tool quickly. 

Use Existing Mockups

The best formats to save your images in for print on demand include *.png, *.svg, and *.jpg that can be used to make mockup files.

No matter which method you end up using, mockups can easily help you bring your design to life, allowing potential customers to preview what your products will look like in real life.

Envato Marketplace

Envato Marketplace is a marketplace for creative assets and creative people to sell their digital assets. Millions of people around the world choose our marketplace, studio and courses to buy files, hire freelancers, or learn the skills needed to build websites, videos, apps, graphics and more.

Creative Market

Creative Market is an online marketplace for community-generated design assets. The company sells fonts, graphics, illustrations, mockups, icons, templates, web themes, stock photography, and other digital goods for use by web creatives

Placeit

Placeit  is an online marketplace for community-generated design assets. The company sells fonts, graphics, illustrations, mockups, icons, templates, web themes, stock photography, and other digital goods for use by web creatives.

Graphic River

GraphicRiver is another service that offers thousands of premium  mockups for Photoshop users, but it is better for those who are on a budget and only want to buy one mockup at a time.

It's a collection platform of hand-reviewed graphic assets from a community of designers. GraphicRiver Details. GraphicRiver Community. GraphicRiver is a collection platform of hand-reviewed graphic assets from a community of designers.

If you are proficient in Photoshop and you're interested in purchasing just one mockup instead of experimenting with several, then Graphic River may be a better choice for you. You can download a single mockup for one-time use for a low fee.

Get Your Designs into Your Shop

Your online shoppers don't have the ability to see, touch or smell your products in person. So as a business owner it's important to provide as many visual elements as possible that will help them determine whether to make a purchase.

Mockups give shoppers an advantage that delivers on the written description included in your listing that a text description could never provide.  

With a well-made sample in front of their eyes, they don’t have to rely as much on their imaginations to know how the product will look once they receive it.

Once your products have been mocked up, you can place them in your eCommerce store for sale. The best resources we have found to create mock ups include Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign (all available for one monthly price) and Canva.

Once the designs are scanned into your computer, you'll need product mock ups. Then those mockups will need to be uploaded and placed on the items you can sell in your store.

These companies will provide you with mockups that you can add your designs to. 

Depending on your skills and time, you can go through the process of creating your own mockups using dedicated graphics software such as Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop, but sometimes you might be better off using more basic tools like the mockups we have here.

The product mockups in our shop are created by the talented designers at Creative Market. From the Creative Market, you can purchase them, save them to your computer and use them as much as you would like.

The best resources we have found to create mock ups include Canva, Smartmockups, Envato Elements, PlaceIt, and the Creative Market. 

There are other companies that offer mockups like Envato Elements, where you sign up for a membership. You pay a flat monthly fee, and download as many mock ups as you want.

Your membership allows you to access thousands of premium digital assets like fonts, logos, graphic templates, mockups, photos, business card templates, and much more.