What is the best and easiest way to make a template for designers to use to submit cap designs?

February 5, 2008 10:59 PM

I'm organizing a fitted cap design contest, and I'm trying to find the best and easiest way to make a template for designers to use to submit cap designs, which is harder than t-shirt designs because cap designs must be 3D. Is it possible on Photoshop, Illustrator, Maya, or something else? Please help!

Ideally, this template has to make the design process as easy as possible, so I'm reluctant to use Maya or other 3D modeling software. Is there a way to do this on Photoshop or Illustrator? Or is there some other method I'm not considering? Designers should be able to submit designs as simple as this and as complicated as this.

posted by ialas to technology (3 comments total)

I forgot to say: thank you in advance for any help you can offer!
posted by ialas at 11:01 PM on February 5

Google SketchUp?
posted by artdrectr at 11:44 PM on February 5

The template doesn't have to be 3d. If you can find someone's existing template somewhere you wouldn't need to do this, but the idea is this:

Take a cap, cut the brim off and cut the rest (should be roughly a dome now) in half (i.e. along the axis/direction that would be easier to design for, presumably the one that doesn't involve the heart getting split in half). All 3 pieces should be able to be pressed flat now. If you trace 'em, then what you're left with should be something like what you want your template to be. You just need to indicate which edge is attached to which. There's a bit of a problem in that your designers are going to have to realize that the surfaces their designs are going to end up on will be curved, but I imagine it's still a better option than handicapping an illustrator user by forcing them to figure out a 3d app they aren't familiar with.
posted by juv3nal at 12:51 AM on February 6