Build Editable, Reusable Digital Product Box Mockups Using Photoshop & Illustrator

1. Intro: If you're looking to elevate your digital products and make them stand out in online marketplaces, then you're in the right place. My name is Ken, and I'm a graphic designer with over nine years of experience. And in this class, I'll teach you how to create professional eye catching digital product mockups using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. But you might be wondering Why markups. Mkups are the first thing potential customers see when browsing for digital products on a website, and a well designed mokup can make the difference between a sale and a scroll past. Whether you're selling ebooks, software, or design templates, presenting your product in a realistic, engaging way is key to grabbing attention and driving sales. It shows professionalism. In this step by step class, we'll start by creating a mockup base template in adobe illustrator. Which we'll then bring into photoshop to complete the design. And by the time we finish, you will have learned how to design a base template from scratch in Adobe Illustrator, how to import that base template into photoshop and create a realistic product mockup. I'll show you how to distort and fit your artwork seamlessly into the mockup, to give it that perspective, that three D perspective. I'll show you how to link Adobe Illustrator files to photoshop for real time updates and fast edits. In addition, I'll share useful tips and tricks to make your work flow much faster and smoother. Now, this class is perfect for anyone who creates downloadable digital assets and would like to sell or give them away. By the end, you will have a fully editable mockup that you can use to showcase your digital products, and you will gain the confidence to tackle other mockup projects in the future. You don't need any previous experience in photoshop or Adobe Illustrator because this is a step by step guide from start to finish. So if you're ready to take your digital product presentations to the next level, let's dive in. And as we get started, In the next lesson, let's look at the project you'll be building throughout the class. I'll see you shortly. 2. Class Project Demo: Now, I always love to insist that the best way to learn a technical skill is to work on a project. And that's what we're going to do in this class. I want us to learn how to build this by working on a project. So here we are inside photoshop, and I want to show you what you will build by the time we finish the class. So here's a digital product, and you will have this by the end of the class, and you will have also understood how to build it. Now, let's say you want to edit this into a different digital product. All you have to do is pick this face and replace it with your face with whatever artwork you want to replace it with. I'll double click this Smart Object icon, and now we're taking to the place where we can replace the artwork. So let's go and pick your artwork. I'll say place link. And now I'll navigate to the place where I have my artwork. You navigate to where you have your artwork. So I'll go inside elements where I have a few examples of artwork. And I will share all these images right below this video player in the projects and resources tab. Download them if you want to follow along. So let's say I want to replace that artwork with this. I'll just double click that and enter. I can delete this now. Now we're left with this. Control S to save it. Now if we go back to our base template, as you can see, the product has changed the front. Now let's change the side. Now was the side. I'll select that side. Double click that. Now we're replacing the side. File place linked. Here is a side. Enter. These are some other side artworks I was trying out. Save that. And I'll go to our artwork and there we have it. We have a brand new product using the base template. So as you can see, this is a highly reusable editable digital product mockup that you can continue using. So basically, by the time we finish the class, you will have understood how to build a digital product mockup like this. Here is one where it's just an individual product, and these are three And I'll also show you how to make them unique products. Right now, we have three identical products, but what if this product was different from this and this from this? Maybe this was green and it's a different type of product? How do we do that? You will learn all that throughout the class. And so if you feel as excited as I am, what are we doing here? Let's go ahead and get started with Lesson one. See shortly. 3. Create a Base Template in Illustrator: A, welcome to the first lesson. Now, as you can see on my screen, I already have Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop open. Now, the first tape we're going to work on is creating a base template in Adobe Illustrator. So let me switch to Adobe Illustrator. So I'll hit Control N to create a new project or just go to file new. So bring up this pop up. I'll go to web, and I'll choose HD. That's 1920 by 1080 pixels in dimension. So I'll select that. And right here, er color mode, leave that as RGB color because you're not doing printing. You're preparing your digital product mockup to share online for people to see your products on a screen. So RGB, the same case applies to rest effects. If you're printing, you go with 300 PPI or 150 for screens 72. But this is all basic adt illustrated. This class is not about illustrated basic. I'll just go ahead and hit Create, and there we go. Now, this is a full HD page. And what I want to do is there are different ways to create this. We can just go ahead and I'll pick the rectangle tool. And draw a rectangle, maybe up to that point. Now, I'll go ahead and select the direct selection tool to allow me to select different individual corners. I'll select this corner and then to prevent movement to the left and right, to constrain it to up and down, I'll hold down shift and drag it up to maybe that point. I'll select this this other corner, start dragging upwards and hold down shift. To maybe that point. I think it looks good. I'll select it once again and holding down out, notice the mouse cursor is changing into a double. That means we're going to duplicate this. Holding down out, I'll drag holding down shift. I'll constrain it from moving up and down. I'm still holding out. Now I'll hold down shift. Now it's shift and out. That means it will move from left to right in a straight line up to maybe that point. Right click it transform, reflect on the vertical on the vertical. Yeah, on the vertical. Okay Let me drag it up to that point because I want to bring it up to here. Then I'll select the direct selection tool. Pick these two, and drag them up to that point. As you can see the base model or the base template has started taking shape. But before we go far, we can select this corner. Start dragging it downwards, then hold down shift to prevent it from moving left to right. Up to that point, we just want to reduce this slantedness. We want to reduce those slopes. As you can see, now we have a base mesh for a digital product. Now, you can also drag these two anchor points to make it look narrow. I'll select the two of them, Control G to group them. Use the horizontal align center and align vertically center to align it in the artboard. In fact, let me select the artboard tool and reduce all this white space. There we go. Control Zero, to show the entire artboard to put it in focus. Then I'll select the artwork and now align it in the center and save it. So I want to save this inside. I'm going to save it inside this folder called assets. And I'm going to include this assets folder below this video player in the projects and resources tab as a ZIP folder, and it's going to contain images and my project files, and you can have a look at them. You can also use the images I've used to complete your class project. So let's go inside assets, and I want to call it base template. Hit enter to save, enter again to save. Now we have the base template. This is not going to be part of the final result, but it's going to help us place the images the right way inside photoshop, and that's what we're going to do in the next lesson. See you short. 4. Place Cover Art as a JPG: And welcome back. So now that we've created the base template, we're now ready to use it inside photoshop. Remember, I mentioned this is only going to be a guide. It's not going to be part of the final result. All right. So let's minimize Illustrator and open up photoshop. And in photoshop, I'll just go and say open. I think it's in here. Base template. Double click that and just use the default setting, so. There we go. And I'm zooming in and out by holding down Alt and using the mouse wheel. That's handy for anyone who is a beginner in photoshop. So now that we have the base template, and it's going to be our guide, it's time to place those faces, and we'll start with this side, which is the front side. So I'll go to file. In fact, let me say, let's say place embedded. We will use these as an example. I'll double click this artwork, and now it's imported. I can go ahead and click this tick or hit Enter to place it. I'll just pick it and drag it up to the top to make sure it's aligned up there, then I'll drag this bottom corner to resize it. Don't worry about accuracy right now. We're going to sort that out, enter to place it. Now with the image selected, I'll go to the layer panel, and I'll right click and convert to smart object. That's very important. Now that it's converted to a smart object, I'll hold down control. And select. Notice the mouse cursor is changing the moment you get close to the corner, holding down control. Now you can drag and place that corner right there. Still holding down control, select that and drag it up to that point. It enter to commit. Now there we have it. I'll just hit Control S to save it. We want to save it inside this assets folder. And this time, we're still going to call it the base template, but it's a PSD file, a photoshop file, save save that. And so we're done with the front. So let's go ahead and place the side. I'll go to file. Place embedded. Let me go back inside here. Double click that side. I'll drag and place it somewhere here. Let me hold down t and scroll to bring it close. In fact, first of all, let me hit enter to place it. Select this. Hold down control. Select it. Now drag this corner and position it properly. Hit enter. I'll select this, hold down Control. Before we do that, let me hit control zero. Now that we've already placed it, I want to go inside here to the layer and right click and convert it to a smart object. All right. Now, let me just get closer, holding down Alt and scrolling with the mouse wheel. I'll carry that and put it up to that point. As you can see, the artwork itself has a white line, but that's not a problem. I'll hold down control and drag that corner up to that point. Stroll down with my mouse wheel to get to the bottom. At to scroll in with the mouse wheel. Hold down control to pick this corner. In fact, let me just put it there. Hit Enter, select this, hold down control, select that. Then now still holding down control, drag and position it properly. Enter, select this, select this corner. Then place it right there, enter. At and scrolling. Hold on control. Hold on control, select that, then drag that to that corner right there. Enter, Control zero, and now you have your product, Control S to save it to the base template. Now, if we want to replace the pace, all we have to do is come to the layer, and notice here we have a small icon inside the layer icon. So double clicking this will open up the flat phase, and if we update this phase, it also gets updated in the digital product in the base template. So I'll come in here. Place embedded, and now I can select a different artwork. Double click that Enter. Let me hit control S to save it. Now going back in here, as you can see, we've replaced our artwork. Let's do the same for the side. If we want to replace the side, I'll come here, double click this corner. File, Place embedded. Double click that enter. Control S to save, and now going back in here, our product is updated. So now, remember, I mentioned that this layer here, the base template we created in Adobe Illustrator is not going to be part of the final product template. And that's because we only wanted to use it as a guide on where to place each corner of the of the artwork. Now that we've set the faces of the digital product mockup, we don't need this. So let me reveal them once again, if we hide it, notice there is no change. A right now, because the two images are not attached, there's a C through space in between them. A we need to do is select one of the faces and push it to the right so that it's in contact with the other one. Control zero, can continue pushing it to the left or right until it's well positioned. Now, if I select the base template, we imported and delete it, Control S. Now we have a fully editable and reusable digital product mockup. So if you want to expand the space here, you can go ahead and use the crop tool to expand the artboard up to maybe that point. That point. Let's also I'm holding down and using the mouse wheel once again to zoom out. U Let's continue creating some space, some room for it, and now control S. Let me just go ahead and select that. Holding down at and dragging. I can duplicate that. Hold down Alt once again and put that right there. Let me select everything. Holding down this side. I can resize it. Enter, and now we have three digital products. They're not properly aligned. Let's align them. Yeah, up to there. Of course, now, if you want to change these, all you have to do is double click any of the smart objects on the corner. File, Place embedded. Double click this, enter, save. And now the sides are changed. Let's also change the face. Double click that face. In fact, we already have this in here, so I'll just hide this and save. Now, going back in here, we've updated our product. So basically, that's how to create a digital product. Now, in the next lesson, I want to show you how I was able to create this kind of artwork for my Bats, because you might be wondering, Ken, yes, you've shown me how to create the markup, but I like the way you designed your digital product artwork. How did you do that? I want to show you that in the next lesson. See you shortly. 5. Place Cover Art as an AI file - Part 1: So now it's time to learn how to think like a designer and create some nice artwork for your digital product. And so I want to switch to Illustrator. Here we are. Let me close this. We're no longer using it, Control N to add new. I'm just going to go in fact, let me go to web. Let me go with this common one. Then create we need to change the orientation. So I'll select the Art War two and switch to portrait, and the dimensions are not right. I think Those are better proportions. Control zero. Now, Control zero brings the whole art ward into focus. So now, I want to switch to free pick. And this is where I typically come to look for templates to do different things as I'm working on my design projects. Let's say, for example, as you can see, right now, my artwork right here has some mascots. So I just went here and said, mascot. As you can see here, we have some nice mascots you can use. Let's download this lion. I'll just go ahead and download it. There we have another one team. I'll also look for icon pack. I think I had looked for that earlier. Yeah, I'll go with this. So that, and let's do it as well. Go ahead and look for whatever type of digital product you want to sell. For me, I'm going to be selling I'm going to be selling an icon pack. So let me just go to where it's located. Here we are. I'll just extract them right here to separate folders. Open this in Illustrator. And that. Awesome. So it seems we're missing a font here, but this font is no problem. We don't need that font. I'll just double click this until I'm inside the group because all we need is the lion. Now, with our lion and the background, I'll select that and drag it into our document, the documentary created, and I'll put that on the top left corner, resize that background. I'll put everything in the middle. A line to board in the middle. Let me make the lion slightly bigger. All right, I'll control C to copy this lion and control shift V to paste it in front. I'll make it big holding down shift and t to resize from the center, and I'll reduce the opacity to some 10%. Up to somewhere there. I want to click this so that it's not overflowing to outside the artboard. So all I need to do is select this copy. And paste it, Let me align it to the center to the artboard. And then while it's selected, I'll hold down shift and select the artwork, right click inside and make clipping mink. That way we're clipping it into the rectangle we just duplicated. Remember, when we select this, we're selecting the clipping mask. We're not selecting the artwork itself, and that's why the opacity is still 100%. If we double click it and get to the artwork, remember, we made it 10%. Let's make it eight 7%. 8%. Double click outside. I'll select this and align it to the center and center. Control S to save it inside assets, I'll save it as Lion icon pack. All right. I want to go back to free pick very quickly, and in here, I'll type font or typography, and we'll get some nice editable font that we can use on our artwork. Let's see. Let me go with this juice. This is just a simple guide to help you know how to do that. Free download. All right. Let's look for it. Extract. Let's open it. Think we might need to download that font. Yeah, this is Spartan MB black. So MB black font. D font. Let's go to I'll download the entire family. Download. Download. L et's extract that to Spartan M B, and let's install all these fonts. All right. Let me just put them in here. Now we have them successfully activated. Let me just close that and it's changed to the right font. I want to pick this font and drag it in here. I'll pick the text too and edit this to L on probably something like icon pac. Let's change that to uppercase. Color white, and let's it out to maybe 500. Let's change the font to Mat Monerat a regular. This is still to visible. Let me reduce the clipping mask itself up to maybe that spot. I'll select these two, the background, and the clipping mask and hit Control two to lock them. Now I can select them. I'll select these, Control G to group them. Then align them in the center. Control S. All right. Now we have the lion icon pack and it's ready. 6. Place Cover Art as an AI file - Part 2: Now, to use it inside, in fact, let also let me double click this group so we can access the text, push this text upwards. Control S. Now we've saved it. Now, to use this as our artwork, we don't need to export it as a JPEG or image. All we need to do is minimize this, minimize that. Remember, photoshop is created by Adobe. Illustrator is created by Adobe. These programs work together seamlessly, so you can import illustrator files. So I'll go to the front here and replace it with let's say place linked. Now, I'll go to assets, Lion icon Pack. There we go. Update that. Let's import crop to bounding box. That's okay. Let me just pick that corner and that corner. Enter, and let's save that. There we go. It's not updated yet. Control S to save, and now it's updated. Now, if we go back inside Illustrator and say Control O, we want to create the side. I'll just select the lion icon pack, and paste it. I want to duplicate it, and I'll call this icon pack side. Enter. I forgot to label this as yen front, but we'll do that later. Right now it's side. And because the height is already okay, all we need to do is select the artboard tool and narrow down the artboard to something reasonable up to that point, maybe. Now let's resize this to something like that. Put this up there. Control out and two we'll unlock the layers we locked with Control two. I'll select the blue background and resize it up to that point. Now we have the clipping mask that's clipping the artwork. I'll double click the mask itself and drag up to that spot. Click outside. In fact, the artwork is too much to the left. So let's double click it and then select and put it somewhere there. In fact, I can type this as maybe my name. Mr. Moneybags. I'll change this to Montserrat. Montserrat. Black. I'll change it to color white. And put it right there. You can put whatever name you want right here on the side. It's all up to you. Now switching back to photoshop, of course, I'll double click this. This is already open. Let me place Link this time. Place Link side bounding box. That's okay. I'll hold down to resize from the center. Enter. Control S to save it. Now, if I switch back here, our product is updated. There we go. Now, if I go back to Illustrator, where is Illustrated, and home, I'll say by Mr. Money bags. So I'll just add by Mr. Money bags. Control S. If I switch back to photoshop, You will notice it would update itself automatically because if I hit Control S and go to our artwork, it's automatically changed itself to by Mr. Moneybags. So that's why we place linked it because we would want to be able to update the pace, the artwork in Illustrator and see those changes in real time in photoshop. The artwork is still linked to the illustrated data. Now, you might be wondering why I did not use this icon pack. Remember, I downloaded an icon pack, O h, wait, we actually opened it up. This was the icon pack we created. Here we go. I thought we could maybe use this as sample icons on the cover art. If I drag and place this here, and take this artwork down, make these icons much bigger, push this down. I mean, it's just getting creative and seeing what results you will get. Let me just save that and see what results we will have. Just by clicking in here. Let me go to the front, as you can see, it's updating. I don't like how high they are, so let me pull them down. Control S switch back here. Control S. In here. Automatically updated, Control S to save it. And now going in here, our Lion icon pack is updated. So basically, that's how to create a digital product markup. Now you might be wondering, what if I want to bundle three different products? Maybe this one is red, this is blue, and this is maybe green, because right now at the moment, if you notice if we change this, it affects the three products. What if we want to have one unique product bundle, another unique product bundle, and another unique product bundle? 7. Multiple Bundles - Part 1: To achieve that, you would have to create the products individually and then arrange them inside Adobe Illustrator. Let me just select these and delete them. I'll take the crop tool and put that there. This is how I would do it. If there's a better way to do it, I'm not aware of it at the moment. So Control S. There we go. So I'll open up Ado Illustrator Control N. Let's just go with the default. Or maybe let me just go to Web, 1920 by 1080. And now let me just place base template. There we go. Because remember, this photoshop document is called base template, so we've imported it. Now, if we update it, if I go back in here and hide that and unhide this and save it, This will also be updated, and so will this because they are linked. Let me save this, and now going in here, it should update any moment. Why is it not updating Control S? Yeah. So Some files have been modified in the link panel. Yes. Now it's updated itself. Now, if I want to add another product here, Alt drag, Alt drag, Control D to repeat that last move, ton dragging. I'll select this, the center one, go to the link, re link, select this copy, paste it, re link to that. And now it still looks the same because this is just a copy of this. But now if we make changes to this in photoshop, it will be unique. Let me switch to photoshop because now this is its own unique artwork. While while this is still selected, I'll say edit in photoshop. And if I double click the face and hide this and unhide that and control S. Going back in here. Now we have that face. Let me double click the side as well. Let me hide that and save. I think we need to go back in here and control S, let's say the main file. Now going back. Now that's red. Of course, by now you know the drill, going to the third one, I'll go to relink it. And I'll select this paste template copy paste. And now we have a third copy. I'll double click that, and now it's a unique copy, edit in photoshop. And of course, now you know the drill. Now, one thing you need to know is before you start editing this or after you close this in Adobe Illustrator, let me first of all, save that. Let me save it as a sample. Now, now it's saved as sample. If I close it and go to that folder. Here we have sample. Now, remember, we can't work with having these types of names, so we can give this a more appropriate name. Maybe this is the trap bundle. Maybe this is the Hip hip hop bundle. Any of these can be a template we can always reuse because all you need to do is go inside photoshop and change the faces. So if you want to reuse it, any of them can be your base template. So we can rename this to the icon pack Lion icon pack, Lion icon Pack. Now, when we open sample, it will say some of the files we used are missing, and it's because he can't find the files by the name we imported them by. We've changed them. So replace. And now let's say which trap bundle? L et's also hip hop bundle. And the final one Lion icon. There we go. So basically, that's how to create a digital product mockup. And as you can see, it's very versatile, you can use this method to create even a stack of digital products. And before you go, I have a few final thoughts. Next steps and ideas I would like to share with you in the next lesson. So I'll see you shortly. 8. Multiple Bundles - Part 2: Now, I've just gone through the lessons to see if I missed anything, and I've realized there are two things I forgot to talk about. So right here, this is the original base template we worked on. So if I just undo, now we have these three products. One thing you will notice here is that it's not easy to tell that these are three products because none of them is casting a shadow. We need to add some drop shadow to separate this front one from this and this from this. So how do you do that? I'll select this side. And I'll go to effects, drop shadow, or I can just double click it right here anywhere here, that will bring up the layer style. I'll go here to drop shadow, activate that, and you will notice already the shadow is appearing. But if I click that, we'll open up the drop shadow options and we can play around with them. For example, the direction, I want the shadow to be on this side. Like that. This is the preview. I want to maybe that spot. I'm avoiding this. What about that? Yeah, something like that. We also want to change the blend mode to some multiply. Let's try that. Multiply, we can change the color maybe, make it a slightly. And I think that's okay. So clicking outside. I'll select this and do the same. I can just come directly here and click drop shadow, and it'll apply the last settings we applied. As you can see, if I click Okay, now it's easy to distinguish between these three products. Control S. Now, another way to distinguish them is by going inside your actual artwork. Let's go in here. This is it. In here, we can add a gradient texture. With that rectangle, aligned in the center. I'll go to the gradient settings, select that to give it a gradient. I'll reverse that, pull this to that side and that that side. And now change the blend mode. Let's go here to appearance. No, Let's go to transparency. Blend mode multiply. Now it's too dark. We can We can make it 35%. We can also let me say that Control S. If we increase this, let's make it as dark as that. Control S. Now, let's switch to photoshop. Double click that. No. Where is the front? Let me place link. Lion icon pack. Yeah, let's select a Lon icon pack. Resize that. Enter to place Control S. There we go. Now going back in here, as you can see, we have this shadow. Now even if we get rid of the drop shadow effects, Remember we added this effect. If I go to this effect, Double click that and remove it. We've removed it, but you can still distinguish between this product and this product because the light is coming from this side, hitting the side, and causing a shadow on the front. Let's go ahead and also let's say okay. Now I won't go ahead and remove that. I just wanted to show you how to make this, how to make each individual digital product pop. 9. Organizing Your Files: Now, the next thing I wanted us to talk about is organization. For example, for this lion pack, the front, the side, and the base template you're going to use are supposed to be in one folder. So I'll go. Let me first of all, close this, close everything down. Open. I, let me close that. Let me open Illustrator and close everything down. Don't save any of these. No, don't say. Now, if I pull up my file explorer, here we are. Here's the lion pack, and here's the base template it used. We're supposed to create new. Lon icon Pack. Lion icon pack, so I'll carry the side, the front artwork, and the base template. These are base templates for other projects. These were examples we were working with. Now, if I want to create a brand new digital product, all I have to do is come here, the base template, Create a new folder, call it the next name. Brushy brush bundle. What kind of a name is that. But let's assume I'm selling photoshop brush bundles. I want to package them as a digital product bundle. Enter, enter, paste that in their base template. Now in this folder, this is where I will create a brand new adobe illustrator file for the front for the side. Then I'll open up the base template. Photoshop always. All right, this is the wrong one. We changed this. But I hope you get the drill. You use the base template. This can be your base template of three, or you can have a base template of just two base template of just one. The most important thing is for you to know how to work with the Mk up itself, and now you know how to edit it. Now, before you go, as I mentioned, I have a few more next steps and ideas I'd like to share with you in the final lesson, so don't go anywhere. See you shortly. 10. Next Steps: Congratulations on completing the class. By now, you should have a fully editable and reusable digital product markup, along with the skills to create more creative variations of it. You can now package and present your downloadable digital assets like a pro. It's time to put those skills to work and start making money online. But before you go, don't forget to submit your class project. We love seeing the creativity of our community sharing ideas, and sharing feedback. So please upload an image or screenshot of your markup once you're done. Make it unique, add your own twist, and don't hesitate to look at other examples for inspiration. And once you're done, just head over to the projects and resources tab below the video player and follow the simple steps to upload your work. And lastly, if you found this class valuable, I'd love to hear your feedback. Reviews are a big part of the Skillshare community because they help other students discover amazing classes they should take. So if you have a moment, please leave a review under the reviews tab below this video. Let me know if the class met your expectations, what you liked about it, and what cool things you learned. Once again, I want to thank you so much for joining me in this class, and I look forward to seeing your project until next time, stay creative, stay awesome. Peace.