How to mockup a logo in a realistic environment?

Question

I have recently created a logo. I have seen an online trend of showing off a logo in a realistic environment, illustrating possible use cases of the logo.

An example of this can be seen here, with the original logo at the bottom and a 3D mockup at the top:

Click for full size

How can I create such a mockup?

Answer 1

The easy method:

Download it.

There are a lot of (free) mockups like this available online. These are usually Photoshop files which have the logo embedded in a smart object. By replacing the logo inside the smart object with your own, you can easily preview your logo in a realistic setting.

Some examples of (free and paid) mockup resources:

• Freepik

• Designshack

• GraphicBurger

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The still easy method

Using a dedicated software.

Adobe has recently released Dimension for example. This software has a bunch of 3D scenes and models built-in, combined with their displacement maps. So all you need to do is drag in your logo and it'll fit it to a product automagically.

A very similar program is BoxShot.

Example:

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The not so easy but still pretty easy method

Roll your own.

1. Find a good photo of a shop front, an office wall, any setting you want to see your logo in. For example:

2. Prepare the place you want to put your logo. In the example I just painted over the window, and used the healing brush on the store top and the sign.

3. Add your logo (as pixels!) and turn it into a smart object (right click > Convert to Smart Object_ or Layer > Smart Objects > Convert to Smart Object).

4. Position your logo as desired. I added a white logo, so for the window I added a layer style (black overlay color).

5. If you want to put your logo in other places, duplicate your layer. It's important that you duplicate, so the logo is updated everywhere when you replace the smart object contents. I also added a noise pattern to the top one to make it a bit more realistic.

6. Now let's replace our logo in our smart object and see if it updates. Double click the Smart Object icon on the layer and it will open the smart object. Put your new logo in and hide or delete the old. Save and return to your first image.

Success! As you can see, this is still pretty easy to do once you understand how this works. You can even distort and add effects to Smart Objects, and the contents will be easy to update.

This really impresses a (potential) client: a picture of their current store front with your new logo!

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<sub>- Photo source: https://unsplash.com/photos/y6rwKaurdkI
- Logo source: http://acmelogos.com/</sub>

Answer 2

For myself, I have a suite of 3D modeling and rendering tools I've become quite comfortable with, and I use them whenever this situation occurs. As the previous answer stipulates, when you show the client the proposed designs not just in a generic "context" but in fact their specific context the impact is... audible.

If you don't want to slog through photoshop smart objects and their massive limitations, you can use Boxshot (easy), or Blender (free), or modo (powerful & easy), or C4D (has existing plugin for Illustrator and Lite version included w/ Adobe CS Suite).

I personally use modo, and love it.

See some of my examples from one ongoing help documentation project reflecting changes in cover design, content layout and even base concept:

Answer 3

Here's a rather simple way to do something similar, without any 3d effects (or any lengthy 3d rendering), simply using basic effects in Photoshop.

What you will need:

• A photograph of a window/wall/surface with some reflections showing
• A logo image with a transparent background
• A second photograph to use as a reflection layer. This can be anything really, as long as there is plenty of light and dark contrast.

In the example below, the store front image is the bottom layer. On top of that I pasted the logo on its own layer, which was quite large, converted it to a Smart Object, then used a Distort Transform to match the perspective of the logo with the Window frame and reduce its size. I then applied a bevel and emboss effect, and drop shadow on the logo Smart Object to give it some depth and solidity.

It's quite useful to have the logo as a Smart Object, since you can edit the Distort Transform as often as you like without degrading the image quality.

Then I used a photo of a street scene as a reflection layer. The image was converted to high contrast using the Threshold filter, then I blurred it using the Gaussian Blur filter, then I did an Ocean Ripple distortion filter on it to give it some texture.

The reflection layer was then clipped to the logo layer, and the layer mode changed to screen, and I also lowered its the opacity of the reflection layer.

Here are examples of the images I used

And here's an example of the finished effect, showing the layers

Click here for a 100% zoom on the logo

It would also be possible to use this as a mockup template, since all you need to do for a different logo is to paste another image into the Smart Object.

Answer 4

There's already many essentials covered by other answers, but I can still add something.

Inserted logo must sit in the background image in several ways:

• same light, plausible glosses and shadows
• same white balance
• same contrast and color saturation
• same noise and general detoriation level
• same viewing perspective, some 3D extrusion can be needed if it's a sign with some thickness.
• geometrical surface form compatibilty (=right bends and bumps)

If the environment is teared and weared, inserted logo cannot be like a new. Of course, If the logo is brand new, one very likely wants to place it onto something as fine. But having something older as one option can help to prove it works also after some time.

Let's stop philosophing and see what we get. Here's a new logo:

The logo placed to an old environmnt:

The logo has reduced contrast and color saturation. Some noise is added. There's an overlay which contains noise, contrast and saturation reducing greyness and darkening due the shadow. All those can be also separate layers and generally should be separate for easy readjustments for different background.

Normal perspective rotation, scaling and distortion are performed. In this case they are not enough. In addition there's

• warping due the bended wall
• displacement map due the non-uniform wall (it's a BW copy of the wall)
• a couple of covering items which hang in front of the logo and prevent the logo to be totally visible; they were cut from the background image

Another example: Someone's shoulder

At first the logo was warped to look out curved.

Light is a desaturated piece of the skin, the brightness range is adjusted with the curves tool to symmetrically around 50% and the contrast was boosted. The blending mode is hard light.

Here only a little of edge fading is added as a detoriation effect. An exactly matching layer mask has got a slight gaussian blur.

A late addition:

One can want to use a shape as a fill pattern. It's easy in illustrator. You can spray shapes or tile them. The simplest way to make a tiling is to drag the shape to the swatches collection and use it as fill color. Here's a pair of curtains which have got a pattern fill + a solid color:

It's quite simple to place these as an overlay in a photo which has already curtains seen straight on the face. A perspective view from other direction needs some warping.

Like in the tattoo case above, one can steal the right shading from the photo with blending modes. It's possible only, if the original curtains have quite light single color without patterns. If there exists no original curtains, only a place for them or the original curtains have complex coloring, the shading must be painted or made with gradients. Shading can be done in the layer mask of a Brightness & Contrast adjustment layer.

Beware: if you cover something from the original image with your own creations, you must also fade the traces. An object with strong color easily colorizes more or less its surroundings. If the object is changed to another, the spred color also must be fixed.

There's one hitch: Textiles have wrinkles, bends and foldings. Flat pattern doesn't look right on them and the situation gets worse if the view isn't straight on the face. One needs complex warps. That case is discussed here:

Creating 3d mock-up texture

The only perfect way to create artificial surface forms is to use 3D software. One good enough for clothes either costs a fortune or is complex to use (Blender, freeware). Hanging curtains with only mild bends are easy case even with manual warping. In CAD software one can create the effect in a minute. The result differs remarkably from the flat view:

The used 3D program (=DesignSpark Mechanical) is entry level freeware. With it you can get only most basic renderings with fixed lights and only in screen resolution. Photorealistic results need more complex software.

The 3D version wasn't made originally to fit into any photo. To place it into a photo one needs light and color matching adjustment layers, a layer mask to clip the curtains and some reflections and shadows. Without them the implant really looks out placed afterwards. Here's an example:

Answer 5

Whilst I agree with the time saving aspects of the software offered, I think its key that you invest and develop the Photoshop (or other) image editing skills to be an effective graphic designer. In my studies, image, type, brand, vector illustration, photography were worked together sympathetically over the 4 years and it has helped my commercial work a great deal. Boxed solutions may looked generic, you want relevance to your client focus and there are odd situations like the music one shown below where the POS box didn't exist - that's what I created (along with the regular CD publishing) and it gained me a rolling 20K international print contract. All the following are pre-production i.e. illustrations from my base art in Photoshop rather than a photo of actual.

Worth the investment - will empower your wider design work.

Answer 6

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