How to Design Poster Mockups

Posters, billboards, banners, and the like are excellent marketing methods used both by businesses and various public associations to grab people’s attention and win their interest. As we all know, however, presentation is key. So how do we know how a poster will be received? Posters mockups are an amazing tool that vividly visualize how the publication will look at the location or venue where it will be seen to experiment before having to spend money.

They can serve the following purposes:

• Informing local people of an upcoming live event or launch
• Effective marketing and promotion
• Featuring barcodes to visit a website or view a company’s portfolio
• Grabbing attention, coming in different sizes and scalable in level of exposure
• Internal company communication
• Reinforcing brand identity
• Agitating to the public about social or political causes

Most Important Features in Making a Poster Look Good

There are certain elements of a poster that generally play a big role in helping the company achieve its promotional goals.

High-Resolution Images and Graphics

It’s been well-established that photography is a huge determinant in public interest and how seriously ordinary people will take a company. Blurry and grainy images get dismissed immediately.

Balanced Composition and Layout

There must be a clear focal point in the image to draw people’s attention. This is often a bold headline, a central image, or an eye-catching design element. White space must also be used to avoid confusing and overcrowding the poster. The layout must be clean and organized.

Clear and Legible Typography

People often see posters from far away so ensuring that the text on it is readable is absolutely key. Overly decorative fonts are usually not your friend. Fonts, weights, subheadings, font sizes, and space in between elements must be consistent and guide the reader’s eye. Ensure that lighting and shadows are consistent with the image and that edges are clean.

Engaging Elements

Use a compelling call to action that causes people to want to take a closer look while they’re walking by and encourages them to take the desired next step, such as ordering a service, coming to an event, or visiting a website. It’s a good idea to consider people and how they react to your cause or service or the product that it helps with. Humor is also not a bad asset for posters.

Image Effects and Texture

For an image to be impactful it needs to be realistic, and this means taking care of things like shadow, lighting, and texture. If you are displaying an image it needs to display the right texture and if the image features folds or curves, any superimposed elements or text must be distorted to fit the same pattern.

Poster Mockup Considerations

Because you are dealing on a computer screen working on posters mockups which use a different scale, you will need a mockup that reflects the intended display environment, such as an indoor office setting, bus stop, outdoor street wall, or a highway billboard.

Top Programs for Poster Mockups

Figma

Since posters are usually produced for the purposes of a public event or company promotion, it greatly speeds up the process to have everyone be able to view an image’s editing in real time to comment on them and contribute to them in a time-efficient fashion. Figma allows that.

Marvel

Another editing tool that allows real-time collaboration, Marvel is easy to use and allows design teams and clients to provide feedback directly on the project, which is especially useful when multiple approvals are necessary. Version control helps roll back changes as well.

CorelDraw

This program is renowned for its price and precise vector editing tools. Its images are particularly detailed and poster designs can be scaled without any loss in quality. If a complex illustration is required, this program is geared toward producing complex patterns, detailed graphics, and custom shapes.

Yellow Images

To get started editing a mockup, you first need to download one. Yellowimages has a vast array of posters mockups for all types of environments, purposes, and industries. All you have to do is look through all of the options until you find the mockup that you absolutely fall in love with.

Yellow Images

Yellowimages.com has an extensive wealth of mockups and different categories of marketing materials that companies and organizations can use for promotion in public. Here is how you go about acquiring them.

1. Find the categories menu in the bottom-left corner of the screen and click on the down-pointing arrow next to Advertising. When the options then open up, select Posters.
2. Click on one of the mockups.
3. On the next page, you will be able to read a description of the mockup and view it from different angles.
4. If you plan on using the poster for commercial purposes, select “Commercial” or “Extended Commercial” license on the right.
5. Add it to cart or download it by pressing the corresponding button on the right side.

Using Figma: Team Collaboration in the Poster Mockup

Here is a guide on how to use Figma to collaborate and edit an image.

1. Open Figma and create a new project or file.
2. Set an artboard with the specific dimensions you’ll need for your poster.
3. Click on the “Frame” tool: Choose a custom size and set the dimensions. A standard poster, for instance, may be 24×36 inches. Keep the size of the venue in mind and the wall space you’ll have available and adjust it accordingly.
4. Import a high-quality image (and subsequent graphics): Go to File > Place Image to import them. Double-click the image to check its resolution. It must be 300 DPI bare minimum.
5. Resize the image: Hold shift while resizing it to maintain the aspect ratio
6. Use vectors for scalability: Use Figma’s vector tools such as the Pen tool and the Shape tool to create scalable design elements that maintain quality during resizing.
7. Input legible texts: Use the Text tool to add text boxes. The main message should be abundantly large, such as 72 pt in the case that your poster is 24×36 inches. Ensure that the text contrasts well with the background using appropriate lighting and color.
8. Invite your team members to participate in the design: Click Share in the upper right-hand corner and send them a link, so they can check on and edit the design in real time. They can comment on it directly in specific areas of the design. If your team decides to backtrack on the design, you can select File > Version history to revert to a prior version of the design.
9. Review the design at 100% scale: picture how the poster will look given the total size of the poster and the field of vision people will have of it.

Starting from Square One

There are many wonderful poster posters mockups you can test out until you arrive at one that you think could be a game-changer. With all the tools that you have now been enlightened on in this guide, why not give it a test run right now? The sooner you develop a compelling poster, the sooner you can start spreading awareness and generating more traffic.

Go to Yellowimages.com and acquire your first poster mockups today.