Creating Your Own Templates for Imprinting
Templates are excellent tools for imaging onto small items. They guide you on how to resize your image to fit the substrate and allow you to see a mock-up of the final imaged product. In some instances, you can see what parts of the picture are cut off by holes in the substrate, such as an iPhone cover camera hole.
While most vendors provide templates for imprintable blanks, not all blank items will have their own template. So, it’s useful to know how to make your own templates. Here’s how!
Cylindrical Objects
Cylindrical objects like mugs and water bottles are challenging when making your template since the surface is not flat. You can wrap a piece of paper around the surface and mark critical boundaries on it. Once marked, measure the dimensions as the printable area is likely to be a rectangle.
Example of Making a Template from a Travel Mug
 |
 |
 |
I marked the corners with a pencil. Once marked, I can easily connect the crop marks to create a rectangular shape to measure with my ruler and input the template size in my graphics software.
Irregular Shaped Items
Ceramic ornaments with irregular shapes, such as stars, hearts, or snowflakes, cannot be measured with a ruler. However, they can be traced or scanned using your copier. One method is to carefully trace the edges of the object with a pencil and then scan it into your computer.
It is recommended to use a scanner instead of a camera, as scanners keep the sizing of the template consistent. Avoid placing the object directly on your scanner to prevent scratches. Once scanned, use the pen tool or outline trace tool in your graphics design program to create your template.
Examples
In this example, I traced the heart ornament on a piece of paper.
Here is a scan of the iPhone cover with a black background from our scanner.
Tips and Hints on Making Your Own Templates
When finished scanning or measuring your template, make sure to add a bleed border and consider safe print areas. This will account for any tiny differences between the substrate size and your template size.
Finally, here is a link to all of Joto’s imprintable blank templates.