Free giraffe SVG files

How the patches are cut, and how small you can go

A giraffe is recognised by its coat, so on most of these files the patches are holes and the lines between them are what is left. Those bars are about 2 mm wide when the giraffe is 100 mm tall, and they join up like a net, which is why each giraffe still lifts as one piece. In vinyl and card that cuts cleanly down to about 70 mm tall. Below that, or in 3 mm plywood, use the giraffe silhouette or the family silhouette, which have no patches cut into them.

The legs are the other thing to watch. They are about 4.5 mm wide at 100 mm tall, and the tail and the two horns are about 3 mm. For a laser-cut giraffe that has to stand up to handling, cut it at 150 mm or taller, or pick the head and neck, the faces or the medallion, where nothing slim sticks out.

Two colours from one cut

Cut a patched giraffe from tan or yellow card and glue it to a brown backing, and the brown shows through every patch. For the other way round, a pale giraffe with pale lines, cut it from brown and back it with cream. The giraffe print panel works the same way: it is a square of coat that you can lay behind a name, or clip to a letter or a heart in your cutting software.

How to open the files

• Cricut Design Space: choose Upload, pick the SVG, and add it to the canvas. Set the width you want; the shape is already welded.
• Silhouette Studio: Designer Edition and above open the SVG. The free Basic Edition does not, so open the DXF instead.
• LightBurn, xTool Creative Space and Glowforge: import the SVG, then set the layer to cut, score or engrave.
• Inkscape, Illustrator and Affinity: open the SVG. It is a plain filled path, so you can recolour it, add a stroke or combine it with your own work.
• Printing or sublimation: use the PNG, which has a transparent background.

Each design page lists the file’s narrowest part at seven sizes, so you can tell whether it will survive at the size you plan to cut.

Questions