DIY Luggage Tag in Fusion 360 for Beginners

I learned how to design a custom luggage tag using sketching, dimensioning, and constraints in Fusion 360. This project is perfect for beginners wanting to explore basic CAD modeling while creating something practical and fun. It teaches essential skills and builds foundational, healthy design habits!

You need:

1. Autodesk Fusion 360 - https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/overview
2. Inspiration pictures of summer for the vibe!

We'll start with a basic sketch. The better your sketch, the better your design will be.

1. Open Fusion 360 and create a new design.
2. Create Sketch in Create
3. Select a plane to start your sketch (e.g., the bottom plane).
4. Click Create > Center Diameter Circle
5. Draw a circle with a diameter of 40 mm on the origin or near it—this will form the main body of your tag.

Here, we will start using constraints to keep your design neat and precise. You can make circles tangent, coincident, or aligned with other objects. A general rule is to dimension everything for correct sizes, then constrain the rest to maintain relationships between the proportions. To avoid over-constraining, only constrain what you know. If anything doesn't work out, you can always hit "Esc" then "Ctrl-Z"!

1. Create a Center Diameter Circle in Create (or click "c"), and two smaller circles, each with a diameter of 10 mm on opposite sides of the bigger circle. No worries if they are not aligned
2. Go to Create > Sketch Dimension. This allows you to set the sizes of the circles and the sizes between each circle.
3. Click on both edges of the small circle, move your mouse down, and set the size to 20 mm in diameter to make sure your sizes are correct. Do the same with the other circles to make sure their sizes are correct.
4. Now, click the center of the smaller circle to the center of the larger circle. Drag your mouse down, and you'll see a dimension appear again. Set the distance between the origins to 60 mm.

Use constraints to make sure the smaller circles are aligned on the same line as your center circle by going to Constraints > Colinear and clicking the center points of each of the circles in the line as they appear from left to right. This will make sure all circles stay on the same line.

Click "Esc" to exit out of a constraint.

1. Go to Sketch > Line line tool and draw four lines to connect the outer edges of the circles.
2. Click Constrain > Tangent
3. Click on the line and then the circle edge to keep the lines tangent with the circle edges, and do this for all sides
4. It's possible your tangent may cause your design to constrain weirdly and look wacky, so instead make sure to click "esc" and try again or ctrl-z to undo.
5. Constrain the lines to be tangent to the circles.

1. Click Finish Sketch
2. Click Extrude and click all the faces of the sketch to extrude them all at once.
3. Set the direction to Symmetrical and eet the distance to 5 mm, or 10 mm in total, to give the tag a 3D shape

Use the Fillet tool and click on the top and bottom edges of the luggage tag to round all edges, setting fillets to 10 mm, or however much you want. This makes your tag smoother and safer to handle!

To make the hole, right click and select "Make Hole." Create a hole where one of the corner circles is—this is where you can attach a keyring or string.

You will see a red circle that shows where the hold will cut into/remove material. If the hole is too big, the red circle will cut out too much, so make sure the hole is centered and appropriately sized. I kept mine to 10 mm, proportional to my object.

Now comes the fun part, which is adding a creative touch. Since it's summer, I chose to emboss my name and sketch a palm tree. You can also change the shape of the luggage tag if you don't like it.

1. Create a new sketch on the top plane of the luggage tag
2. Create a new deisgn that you would like on your tag
3. Use Emboss or Extrude to add your initials, a logo, or a small pattern
4. You can also apply color to your design inside Fusion 360 to preview the final look!

And you're done! I hope you enjoyed it and learned a lot from the process!