Shipshot guide
Shipshot guides and updates
Journalists, review sites, and community curators need different material from a store listing, and sending them the wrong thing slows coverage down or produces a piece illustrated with a blurry crop. A small, well-prepared kit removes that friction and takes an hour to assemble once.
Send unframed screens at full resolution
Store frames carry your captions, backgrounds, and device mockups, which is exactly what a publication cannot use — they have their own layouts and house style. Provide clean, full-resolution interface captures with no marketing overlay alongside the composed versions, and let the publication choose.
- Export clean interface captures without captions or decorative backgrounds.
- Keep them at full resolution rather than resized for the web.
- Include the composed store frames separately for anyone who wants them.
Include the assets people always ask for next
After screenshots, the usual requests are the app icon at high resolution, a plain logo, a short description at a couple of lengths, and the correct spelling and capitalisation of the product name. Assembling these once prevents a series of interruptions during the week you least want them.
- Include the icon and logo at high resolution on a plain background.
- Write a one-line and a one-paragraph description.
- State the exact product name spelling, capitalisation, and any trademark form.
Caption the screens so nobody guesses
Provide a short line for each screen saying what it shows. Publications frequently mislabel screenshots because nothing told them what they were looking at, and a wrong caption in a review is hard to correct later. One sentence per image prevents almost all of it.
- Write a one-line description for every image in the kit.
- Name the feature or screen using the same words your app uses.
- Note anything requiring a subscription or specific hardware.
Keep the kit current and easy to fetch
An outdated kit produces coverage showing an interface that no longer exists, which is worse than no kit. Refresh it whenever the interface changes visibly, date it so recipients know what they have, and keep it somewhere retrievable without a request. The same rules that govern your store screenshots apply here: no personal data, no unlicensed content, nothing the build cannot do.
- Refresh the kit whenever the interface changes visibly.
- Date the kit so recipients can tell whether it is current.
- Audit it for personal data and third-party material before sharing.
Review checklist
Questions to ask before handoff
Should a press kit contain the store screenshots?
Include them, but lead with clean unframed captures. Publications have their own layouts and usually cannot use frames carrying your captions and backgrounds.
What gets requested most after screenshots?
A high-resolution icon, a plain logo, short and long descriptions, and confirmation of exactly how the product name is spelled and capitalised.
How often should the kit be refreshed?
Whenever the interface changes visibly. Coverage illustrated with a retired interface is worse than coverage with no images.