Impressions - Team & Activewear Summer 2021 - 17

R
egardless of sport, fanwear is popular for the garmentdecorating
industry. Unique designs using a team's colors,
name or mascot can help generate additional income
and you can present them to local schools, recreational
teams and more.
In the baseball design used for this article, a traditional scripttype
layout with a " swoosh tail " was created for a shirt front incorporating
a full-color mascot image and a tone-on-tone image in the
background. Th e design's hard edges are ideal for direct-to-garment
(DTG) printing, dye sublimation, heat transfers, screen printing
and more.
In this article, you will learn which techniques were used and
how the layouts were put together to create these designs using
Adobe Photoshop.
The Text
Open the image of the mascot you want to use. In this case, the
badger fi le was a high-resolution, 300dpi, 14 " x 14 " PNG image on
a transparent background (see Figure 1). With this design, the text
is the layout's main element. Th e script font with swoosh tail is a
popular layout for baseball jerseys, so why not use the same concept?
For now, turn off the " eyeball " of the art layer in your Layers palette
to hide the art image. Choose a bold, thick script font.
Start by using the horizontal text tool. Make any font adjustments
to reach the desired size. Next, add a slight arch to your text
by using the Warp Text option, and then use the Skew Transformation
option to shift the baseline so that the right side is slightly
higher (see Figure 2).
Figure 2
The Swoosh
To add the tail, zoom into the last letter of
your text and, using the Pen tool, place your
fi rst point along the edge of the last letter
where the tail will connect. Click and drag
to pull out the Bezier handles. Place the
next point and drag to form the top curve.
Continue clicking and dragging to form the
shape of the tail. Close the path by hovering
the cursor over the fi rst point and click when
you see a small circle appear (see Figure 3).
Once you complete the path, use the
direct-selection tool to click on points and
handles to further adjust the path's outline
until the desired shape is achieved.
In the Paths palette (Windows > Paths),
double-click on the name of the path you
just created and give it a name. Th is will
save it if you need to adjust it for any reason
in the future.
Create a new layer by clicking on the New
Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette.
Hold down the Option (Mac) or Alt
(PC) and Delete or Backspace keys to fi ll
the selection with the current foreground
color. To change the foreground color, click
the foreground color swatch at the bottom
of the Tools palette.
If you want to select a color used in the
image, use the Eyedropper tool and click
A Supplement to impr ession s
Summer 2021 * 17
Figure 3
on the desired color. Th is will become the foreground color. Once
the selection is fi lled with the desired color, go to Select > Deselect.
Hide the mascot layer again and the original active text layer
(see Figure 4).
The Mascot
Now that you've completed a basic text layout, you can position the
mascot. Turn the eyeball back on and make sure the layer is selected
and positioned. Using the Scale Transformation tool, adjust the
mascot to the desired size to fi t snugly under the right side of the
text (see Figure 5). To add a circle behind the mascot, create a new
layer and use the Elliptical Marquee tool to click and drag. Hold
down the Shift key while doing this to complete circle. Now, fi ll
the circle with a color the same way you did for the text.
Layer styles were used to create the one-color, solid-purple outline
and the radial gradient yellow-orange fi ll. Th e white outline, however,
was created by selecting the circle and the badger. Hold down
the Command/Control key and click on the little preview image of
the mascot art layer to select it. Th en, hold the Command/Control
and Shift keys and select the Circle Preview icon. Th is will add the
selection of the circle to the art selection. Create a new layer and
fi ll it with white. Deselect it and move the layer behind the text.
Tail Text & Pinstripes
Adding the mascot name in the tail was achieved in a similar way
to the script text. Th e font color was selected from the color swatch
Impressions - Team & Activewear Summer 2021

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