Seasonal Mockups for Stationery Products
If you own a stationery brand, then you know how hard it can be to find mockups that reflect your brand style. Mockups give you the flexibility to feature many of your designs without having to photograph them all. In this blog post, I will share how I created seasonal mockups for my client, Alex, so that she can be ready for the busy holiday season ahead with just a few images at her fingertips!
As a stationery brand, you spend countless hours creating your designs. With all the work you pour into your products, getting product photos of them can sometimes be scary. “What if the photos don’t do the art justice?” is a valid concern, especially for watercolor artwork. It is such a light and airy style of art that can sometimes get washed out in photos. This was the concern my client, Alex, of Korynne & Company came to me with. Her artwork is beautiful and light, and that can sometimes mean washed out product photos that do not represent the true beauty of her work. After working together on a few briefs, she had the idea of possibly creating mockups so that she could just drop her designs in so her art would be vivid and true to life. Not to mention, mockups would give her versatility and she could feature many more of her designs than if she had me photograph just a few cards. They turned our better than we both could have imaged. Here’s how we made it happen!
It comes as no surprise that seasonal content is so important for your brand. This helps you stay relevant and up to date. It also helps your brand stand out against other brands during a busy holiday shopping season. Seasonal products are my favorite to style and photograph, I love a good holiday theme. And since stationery is one niche I specialize in, combining a seasonal stationery mockup with my styling gave Alex the best of both worlds.
Alex’s brand, Korynne & Company, is fun and minimalistically beautiful. She wanted to keep her visual branding consistent with the work we had already done, but wanted a way to showcase more designs effortlessly without having to photograph 20+ cards! We planned the shoot the same exact way we had before, starting with a mood board of backdrop colors, props, and a shot list. Only instead of selecting which cards to use, I used blank cards in each scene.
Alex’s mood board for her mockup shoot- we still nail down props, backdrops colors, and scenes.
The main thing I needed to focus on was creating my flatlays in the same way I always would with Alex’s cards. I did not want the photos to feel any different visually, and I didn’t want the scene to feel incomplete when Alex dropped in her designs. I used the props we had planned and added my touch of glitter and confetti (a favorite of Alex’s) to complete each flatlay. Oh! And did I mention these were not your basic drag and drop mockups- I do not do basic here! These were all smart object mockups that were carefully created to give the most realistic mockup possible.
You can see on the side where each card is labeled- all Alex has to do is click into that folder and add in her design to the photo. You would never be able to tell this was a mockup!
My most challenging photo was the box of Christmas cards. I wanted the scenes to be as organic as they normally would, and did not want to rely on stiff, non overlapping layouts. I wanted the cards to be spilling out of the box, so I knew I needed to make sure each card was carefully isolated and turned into a smart object to make placing the design super easy for Alex.
I love how versatile the final gallery of mockups was for Alex. It included everything she needed from Halloween, to Fall, to Thanksgiving, and tons of options for Christmas! If you would like custom mockups created for your stationery brand, reach out here! I would love to create a gallery of photos that can do the heavy lifting for you! You can read Ale’x kind words below:
Alex’s testimonial is proof that mockups are always a good idea for your brand!
