How to create a mockup in Canva: Quick tutorial video

April 8, 2021

Yet another awesome feature in Canva (even on a free account!) - you can create a mockup with your design on all kinds of objects - phones, laptops, cards, posters, t-shirts, mugs . . . with full background scenes, or with a blank (transparent) background.

In this quick demo video I'll show you how to use the Smartmockups feature to mock up your design on a mug and make it look like it's sitting on a reflective surface.

Smartmockups in Canva in 3 simple steps

Download your design if you created it in Canva. (If you didn't, you can skip this step).

Smartmockups will only work with an image file. You can't use it on other types of elements in Canva - shapes, text, etc. - only .jpg or .png files. So if you're trying to use a design you created in Canva, like this simple "Make Your Mark" wordmark I made, download it and save it where you can find it.

Upload the design you want on your mockup

Upload your design back into Canva. Grab that design you downloaded, drag and drop it right onto a new document or into your "Uploads" folder.

Place the image, then go to "effects"

Find "Smartmockups" in the list of effects on the left side of the screen. Hit the "See All" text and scroll through the available mockup items till you find the one you want to use.

Click the one you want and watch it do its magic. The end. That's all I did in the mug video - it really is that simple to mock up your design. But there's more . . .

Use Smartmockups settings to fine-tune your mockup design

If you look closely, you'll see a little "settings" icon overlaid on the mockup you chose. You can click that to fine-tune the controls a little bit.

Smartmockups will set your design size as "fill" by default, and a lot of the time that ends up looking pretty huge. Click the settings button and you can choose "fit", which tends to look better immediately. Or hit "custom" and you can control the exact size of the design and also move it up or down, left or right on the object.

On some (but not all) of the mockup objects, you can also change the color of the object itself.

Pretty cool, yeah?

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