Tips and Tricks for Designing with Sports Team Templates in Silhouette Studio

Have you ever downloaded one of those sports team templates that looks like this and thought, "How in the world do I change the place holder text?

Designer Edition,Designing,Silhouette Studio,Fonts,So Fontsy,Customizing Designs,

It can get a little confusing, especially if this is your first time customizing a template. But I'm going to show you EXACTLY how to do this, step by step.

The sports template design I'm using in this tutorial came from So Fontsy where we have tons of customizable sports templates. I love using them because I don't have to completely design from scratch, but they're still custom!

It's important to understand the mockup you see is NOT what the file looks like when you open it. The mockup shows you the potential for it can look like after you customize it.

You don't have to put your city name. You don't have to put "mascot." You could put your school name, your team name, graduation year, jersey number - whatever you want!

You'll most likely have the option of various file types. If at all possible, use and open the SVG file for templates. (You will need Designer Edition or higher.) This video explains why that's so important and why using the PNG file will create a bunch of extra work.

Just drag and drop the SVG right into your Design area.

Now you'll see text that says something like "Mascot" or "Your Team." This is just a place holder - it's not actual editable text anymore. In this case there's just a block of space. In some templates there will literally be a text that same "Sample". Unless you have the exact font installed on your computer, that the designer also used, it will show up as a default. font style (like Arial).

Don't try to re-type this font, just delete it and open your text tool from the right tool bar. Type your text separately. For example, I'm typing "Titans" because that's my kids' school mascot.

Now you can pick the font style you want to use.

For sports templates I try to pick a sporty-type font. Here are a few I like:

Scale the text so it takes up the space. This video explains what to do if your school name/mascot title does not fit the space well.

I didn't add it to this template, but the template suggests adding the city name around the curve of the basketball. I appreciate the little note the designer left, but it's not quite accurate.

After curving the text around the basketball you'll need to right click > convert to path in order to "freeze" the curved text before deleting the line. If you're new to text to path aka curving text, I explain in detail in this video.

And here's how it came out on the hoodie (a favorite of mine on Amazon for the quality and rock bottom price).

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