Mockup Types
Web Mockups
Desktop Web Design
Desktop website mockups illustrate full-scale layouts, navigation, and content hierarchy at widths of 1200px and above. They are essential for demonstrating how menus, hero sections, and content grids behave on large screens. Including hover states, dropdown menus, and modal examples helps developers understand website interactions before coding begins. High-resolution exports also preserve browser accuracy, making the design presentation feel more professional.
Responsive Breakpoints
Web mockups often require multiple breakpoints—1200px (desktop), 768px (tablet), and 320px (mobile)—to communicate responsive behavior clearly. Showing the layout at these sizes helps clients and teams understand how elements reflow across devices. Breakpoint mockups also reduce misunderstanding during development and support early layout testing.
Interactive States
A strong web mockup should include interaction states such as hover, active, focus, and disabled. Adding error messages, tooltip examples, and loading indicators makes the prototype feel real. Designers who document states visually build smoother collaboration with developers and ensure accessibility is considered from the start.
Mobile Mockups
Platform-Specific Design
Mobile mockups need accurate iOS and Android components—status bars, navigation patterns, typography rules, and safe areas. Using device frames ensures context and improves realism during presentations. These mockups illustrate how the product looks on actual hardware, helping clients visualize the final experience.
Touch and Gesture Documentation
Mobile interactions rely heavily on gestures. Mockups should indicate tap areas, swipe behaviors, scrolling, and transitions between screens. Sequential frames or animated previews help communicate interaction timing and smoother flows in a way static screens cannot.
Mobile Optimization
Because mobile screens are small, blank sticker mockup must account for touch-friendly sizing, generous padding, and readable typography. Buttons should meet 44–48px touch target minimums. Clear spacing creates more intuitive experiences and reduces user frustration.
Product and Packaging Mockups
3D Product Context
Product and packaging mockups often use 3D renderings or smart-object PSD templates to show multiple angles of a product. Clients need to see front, back, side, and top views to evaluate packaging layout accurately. Realistic shadows and perspective help users understand proportions instantly.
Material Simulation
High-quality product mockups simulate materials like matte paper, glossy surfaces, soft-touch lamination, holographic foils, or metallic wraps. Adding reflections, grain, or texture makes packaging designs look more believable and premium.
Environmental Placement
Placing packaging inside a realistic environment—on a shelf, in a hand, or inside a shipping box—provides scale and emotional context. It helps buyers imagine how the product will appear in real retail settings or e-commerce photos.
Branding and Identity Mockups
Logo and System Display
Brand identity mockups present logos across multiple sizes, color variations, and materials. Designers show how the system behaves across backgrounds—light, dark, textured—to confirm flexibility and legibility. This reinforces brand coherence and prepares teams for future usage scenarios.
Branded Collateral
Business cards, envelopes, presentation folders, and letterheads benefit greatly from mockups. Showing these items together demonstrates the unity of the brand system and conveys how identity translates into print and corporate environments.
Brand Guidelines Visualization
Mockups help visualize spacing rules, minimum logo sizes, and forbidden variations. This creates clarity far beyond text-only guidelines, helping teams avoid common branding mistakes.
Specialized Digital Formats
Email Templates
Email mockups must consider limited CSS support in tools like Outlook. Designers show mobile and desktop adaptations, verifying column stacking, image scaling, and fallback typography. These mockups ensure campaigns are reliable across all inboxes.
Social Media Templates
Each platform has strict dimensions—square posts, vertical stories, LinkedIn banners, YouTube thumbnails. Social media mockups display how content behaves inside native layouts, including safe zones and UI overlays.
Print Material Details
Print mockups include bleeds, margins, fold lines, paper textures, and finish simulations to ensure accurate prepress representation. They help teams catch errors before production.
Interactive and Advanced Mockups
Click-Through Prototypes
Click-through prototypes simulate user flows across screens, allowing teams to test navigation before development. They help verify whether layouts support clear and intuitive interactions.
Animated Mockups
Motion previews—micro-interactions, button transitions, page fades—add realism to the design. These mockups are essential when pitching concepts that rely on performance and motion timing.
Immersive Experiences
AR and VR mockups present products inside three-dimensional environments. These advanced formats help visualize spatial interactions and emerging interfaces.
Presentation and Context
Environmental Mockups
Contextual placement—websites on monitors, apps in hands, packaging on shelves—makes mockups feel believable. Realistic environments give clients emotional and functional clarity.
Device Frame Integration
Using proper device frames such as iPhone, iPad, or MacBook improves professionalism. It allows clients to imagine the design on the exact device users will hold.
Comparative Display
Side-by-side comparisons help stakeholders quickly evaluate differences between variations. This is ideal for color changes, layout changes, or alternative branding systems.
FAQ
Designers commonly use 1200px for desktop, 768px for tablets, and 320px for mobile. These sizes reflect real device usage and cover most responsive cases.
At minimum, provide multiple angles, material accuracy, and realistic lighting. More detail increases client confidence but also increases production time.
Focus on critical screens and complete user journeys, not every small variation. This saves time while still providing clarity.
What clients say
“This guide helped me completely restructure the way I present mockups. Clients finally understand the difference between responsive and adaptive layouts.”
“Loved the section on product and packaging mockups. Adding environmental scenes improved approval rates immediately.”
“Clear, practical, and modern. The breakdown of tools by mockup type is exactly what junior designers need.”