Public Speaking Course:

Mock Ups

You will learn about the proper use of mock ups when taking my public speaking course.
Some funny material you can add to your presentations are creating fake newspaper articles, headlines and book covers by using your computer software and printer. This is called a mockup.

To create a mock up a newspaper article, just find the column function of your word processor and set the width to approximate a real newspaper. It really does not matter that you don't have actual newsprint to hold up because your audience will think you simply cut the article from a newspaper and had it photocopied. If you want to use an actual real newspaper, you would have to go through a very lengthy process of trying to shade a piece of laser paper to approximate the color of your newspaper. I guess you could also find some actual newsprint that would feed through your printer.

But making a mock up is sufficient. The easiest way is to simply paste or tape your headline or article on one of the inside pages of a real newspaper and then open the paper so you can read the paste up, but the audience will think it is a real newspaper.

David Glickman who is a humorist and parody writer gave me this really great funny idea . You can create "mock ups" that are not limited to just newspapers. He uses his color inkjet printer to duplicate the black box and yellow letters that are on the front of all the Dummies series of books. He then pastes his new title over the one on an actual Dummies book. The rest of the cover is so busy that people only focus
on the big black box. From a distance you can't even tell it is a mockup.

I just used this technique for a big cable company. The title
was, Digital Cable TV Maintenance and Installation for Dummies. It is
not too funny to you, but to the targeted audience it was hilarious.
You can also mock up fake telegrams and letters from well known
people who are not at your public speaking event.