Free book mockups

A book is more surfaces than a flat cover file suggests, and that's the thing a mockup is really for. There's the front, but also the spine that has to be legible edge-on in a crowded shelf, the back with its blurb and barcode, and the inside spreads where the type and images actually live. A hardcover carries a dust jacket with flaps that fold in, or wears its design printed straight onto the boards; a paperback bends and shows its cover curving — each behaves differently under light, and the cover you approved flat can read quite differently once it's an object with thickness and a shadow.

The kind of book sets the proportion, and the proportion sets the feel. A novel is tall, narrow and comfortable in one hand; a photo book or art album goes large and often landscape to give images room to run across a spread; a children's book tends toward a chunky square with heavy board pages. So it's worth matching the mockup to what you're making — a design that looks right on a slim paperback can feel lost on a wide album, and the way to tell is to see your cover and a spread on the actual shape, closed on a table and open in the hand, before it goes to the printer.