Biggest Mistake New Clothing Brands Make In 2023

Today I'm going about one of the biggest mistakes that new clothing brands make, and that is not using good mockups. Great explanations are hyper realistic or realistic visual representations of a product. The most common one in the streetwear industry is, of course, the shirt. It gives your customer a sense of what to expect once the actual shirt is in their hands. It does not mean design. Alright, because I keep getting messages from people asking if I can create them a short mockup, but really what they mean is a design. So know the difference, guys. But yeah, one of the reasons why it is so crucial is because it actually helps you generate sales.

Take a look at these two examples. If you're browsing on a website, which one are you more likely to click on, even though the design is the same? Without doubt it's the one on the right. I know you can probably argue that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, though that may be true, but a majority of you is going to pick the one on the right. It just looks better in comparison to the one on the left. It looks realistic, it looks more professional, so all that adds up to be convincing and assurance to your customers. Let me show you guys some more bad examples. Let's go to Instagram and look up hashtag clothing brand. Here's one that's pretty generic.

The background is too busy for mockups. You don't want to be too complex. A plain white or black background works just as good, if not better, than something like this. It is also very pixelated, which is another bad sign. Let's go back again. This is a good one. The execution is almost perfect, other than the fact that the print area is too big. usually they only print in A3, which is roughly about this size, or at most A2. So this is a bit unrealistic, but overall it is still very decent.

The designs blend really well into the shirt. Let's go back. Here's another one with unrealistic print size, but good mockup nonetheless. A good mockup also works for graphic designers as well, guys, especially if you're working for a client. It helps to give them a realistic visual of the end product. I've sold loads of very simple designs before even logo shirts, just because the mockup looks so good. Here's another bad example. The edges of the shirt is badly trimmed. You can still see the residue of pixels, not to mention the placement of this signature here.

Again, print area is inaccurate, but it can be done. If you're going fully custom, like with a manufacturer instead of a print shop, they can do it, but in this case not sure if it looks good. Here we go. The mockup is too flat. The designs are not blended well onto the shirt. They look like you just slapped the designs on top of the shirt's, so it lacks realism. Also, guys, another thing that's pretty subjective, is 3D mockups. So something like these?

The Best Way to Showcase Your Clothes on Your Website

Personally, I am not a fan because they look kinda soulless. I don't know. They just look too computer generated, in my opinion. Not sure if you guys get what I mean, but yeah, what do you guys think? Let me know in the comments below. Now, obviously, the best way to showcase your clothes on your website is, of course, shooting them yourself. I still completely believe that.

But then it would mean that you need to hire a photographer. They don't come cheap, especially if you're just starting out and on a very tight budget. It would also mean you need to rent out a studio space for shooting. those don't come cheap either. Now you could probably get away with shooting with your iPhone, but again you need to understand some basic photography composition to come up with decent results, which is not the case commonly to most people. Now that's where mockup comes.

Photoshop Mockups – Saves You Time

It skips all of that and saves you time. If you've ever been a part of a photo shoot, you'll agree that it takes up a big chunk of your time while creating and editing. A mockup takes minutes on Photoshop and you can do it at any time and from anywhere. Also, it allows easy modification, so let's say youmessed up the placement or whatever. You can easily just go back and edit it to change literally any aspect of it. This is worlds apart from photography, which includes creating a new version of the shirt every time a new change is made.

Free Mockups – How to Make Your Own Mockups

So really using a mockup is no brainer. If you're using a print on demand platform like Printful or Printify, they already provide those for free. You can just use them, but it's not as unique since everyone has access to them. You can also use my mockup- Shameless plug, I know, but I've made pretty much every kind of silhouette needed for a startup calling brand like oversized shirts, s-wash shorts, heavyhoodhoods, and many more. Not to mention that they're very easy to use. Just double click on this file right here, let your design file hit save, and all the effects are applied in this ultra realistic mockup link in the description below. Or you can just google free mockups.

Code Branding 101 – Code Branding 101

They're practically everywhere, but you have to filter out the bad ones first. Now the good ones, in my opinion, are from Roo Porter. They are a blank company if you haven't heard of them, and they give these out for free. But I think you do have to sign up for a wholesale account now to gain access to them. That is all for today. guys.

Hope you learned something valuable today that you can add to your code brand. I'm always trying to help educate people to build their brand, so don't miss out. guys, subscribe for more videos like this. See you on the next one.