How to Prompt a Print-on-Demand Mock with Safe Margins
Print-on-demand mocks fail when the art sits on the stitch line and the scene is covered in bestseller badges. You upload a hanging shirt with "2k sold" in fake type. Etsy looks busy. The printer crops your design. The job is a mock prompt with the print area inset, garment you actually sell, and a ban on invented badges.
The matching generator is the Print-on-Demand Mock Prompt with Print-Safe Margins prompt. Browse related cards in the PromptDig library (Browse more prompts). When a filled run survives, share the version you actually use (Share a prompt).
Name the garment, the print area, and the margin
Brief: product (tee, tote, poster), colorway, camera. Tool and version named. Exact text: only if the design itself has type you own and want in the mock; otherwise NONE and you will composite the real file. Sizes: mock export plus the print-safe inset you were given (for example keep art inside a chest box). Brand kit: garment color, lighting. Do not depict: bestseller badges, star ratings, fake "Etsy pick" laurels, extra SKUs, hanging tags with prices.
If the printer's template is in Inputs, the prompt must respect that box. If the template is missing, Gaps say so. Do not invent a 0.25 inch margin because "that is standard."
Safe margins are geometry. Badges are a fail.
Visual plan: garment fill frame, print area marked as a quieter rectangle, art inside that rectangle, no type on seams, collar, or hem. Exact prompts quote any design text from Text and repeat the inset.
Text-in-image rules: no badges, no prices, no URLs, no "BEST SELLER." If the design has a quoted line, that line only.
Export checklist: square or the size you named, margin check against the template, a badge hunt. If the shirt grows a gold laurel, the card failed.
Do not invent a sales count, a review quote, or a lifestyle model you do not have a release for. A ghosted mannequin or a flat lay is enough if people were not in Brief.
Gaps: missing template is a print risk
Gaps: missing printer template, missing garment color, missing whether art is composited later, missing size, missing model version. Five bullets.
This is catalog photography, not a marketplace ranking strategy.
A worked pass: rust tee, chest box, no laurel
Brief: short-sleeve tee, rust body, art later. Text: NONE. Size: 2000x2000 if named. Margin: art inside a chest rectangle away from collar and side seams, using the inset you pasted. Do not depict: badges, stars, prices, extra shirts, readable tags.
Plan: one tee, soft daylight, print area empty and slightly lighter so you can drop the real PNG. Prompt forbids letters and laurels. Export: margin check.
If the model fills the chest with almost-letters "COOL TEE," discard it. If it adds a second colorway as a "set," discard it. Composite the real design in the safe box. The mock is a garment with a hole for your file, not a finished listing with fake proof.
If you sell totes and tees, do not combine them in one mock unless Brief said a bundle. Each garment gets its own inset. Wrinkle and hang style can change between shots. The print box cannot. If a printer requires a transparent PNG of the design, the mock still stays empty in that box; do not ask the model to reconstruct your file from a memory of last season.
Fill the card, then run
Paste the garment, the printer inset if you have it, and whether art is composited later. Forbid badges.
Brief: [Brief]
Tool and version: [Tool]
Exact text to render if any: [Text]
Sizes: [Sizes]
Brand kit: [Brand]
Do not depict: [DoNot]
Printers crop. Marketplaces already show social proof from real orders. When a run returns a mock with an empty safe box and no bestseller laurel, share that filled card.