The Most Famous Baseball Card Designs

After getting some background experience with editing, I have looked into famous baseball card designs and what has made them stand out. In some research, these 5 card designs have stood out the most to me.


 Allen Ginter Cards Concepts 

Many card collectors consider the prints to be the best baseball cards of all time. They were first made in 1887 in packs of Allen and Ginter cigarettes. They put the cards in cigarette packs to try and hook the customers on their product. Their cards have a nice vintage feel that has stood the test of time.


Chromolithography

Process of using oil and water to create multiple layers kind of water color look. Prints are made after the original chromolithograph. The printers of A&G cards were a lithographic printing firm. 




1987 Topps 

Barry Bonds (rookie, Pittsburgh Pirates), Barry Larkin (rookie, Cincinnati Reds), Bo Jackson (rookie, Kansas City Royals)


These cards feature a nice wood grain border design that was very popular. Dom Casual bold font inside a rectangle of color, corresponds to one of the team’s accents. In the upper left they have a logo and name under their photo offset to the right. These cards give off a nice playful classic feel and remain a staple in many collections.





1963 Topps 

Featuring one of the most popular vintage designs of all-time, 1963 Topps Baseball utilizes bright colors and crisp images. The card bottoms feature colored panels that contain the player's name, position, and team, while extending all the way to the bottom of the card. The bright blocks of colors help the cards stand out in a simple way.







1959 Topps 

Mickey Mantle (New York Yankees), Bob Gibson (rookie, St. Louis Cardinals), Billy Pierce All-Star (last card in set, Chicago White Sox)


These cards have some bright solid colors that surround them to appeal to the eye. The player names are in a lower case slant across the top and the teams logo bottom left. The backs of the cards have player focused cartoons setting each card a part from the other. These cards truly stand out in many ways. 




1952 Topps 

Lastly, '52 Topps features the colorized black and white photography, and full team logos and signatures (taken from the players' contracts with the company) that help set the standard for modern card design.


The ‘52 Topps set is an iconic design which started what would become the standard format for the modern baseball card. With the player signature on the front fans can better develop a connection with the player.





Comments

  1. MrsrudolphMay 19, 2022 at 1:52 PM

    This is the post that needs additional personal commentary...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 2: Printing Press

Image
 On Tuesday, I was fortunate to go down to POV Solutions and meet with Mrs. Lindsey Whitticar and Mr. Chris Yuhasz. Lindsey showed me around the place, gave me a very in-depth tour of all their machinery, and introduced me to almost everyone. Quickly, I was able to appreciate the knowledge and understanding it takes to operate the different machines. I watched as the machines cut thick sheets of paper and learned about the process that the paper goes through. There were some products being printed while I was there like a puzzle that they just put the photo on the thick cardboard material and were getting ready to send it off to cut into puzzle pieces. They also had hundreds of sheets/templates of this one folding box that had special cut lines. After the tour, we were able to print one of my designs onto a card sheet which was very cool. Next week will be focused on finishing all the designs, printing all the cards, and learning about distribution.  I was also lucky to speak ...
Read more

Final Reflection

Image
    Back in the winter, I was brainstorming an idea for my senior project. I had just recently written my college essay about baseball cards and fulfilling childhood dreams when it hit me. I never had a professional baseball card of myself. I had parents previously make cards to commemorate seasons with stats on the back, but the cards were really just pictures with the basic font on the fronts. I wanted something professional. We have a special group of 8 seniors on our baseball team and I thought it would be cool to create baseball cards for all seniors. I wanted the cards to be personal and have some significance tying in our season somehow. As the project progressed I decided to create cards for everyone on the team along with the coaches. These cards will help to capture the 2022 baseball season which resulted in the school's first district championship in 26 years.       To achieve this goal, I would need to learn quite a bit about graphic design...
Read more

Week 2: Designs and More Designs

Image
 In the second week, I now had a good understanding of what I wanted most of the cards to look like so now the important part was keeping the layout consistent and repeatable with both the fronts and backs. I drew heavy inspiration from Allen and Ginter which happened to be my favorite card designs.  I wanted the cards to be personal so I noted the watercolor background and then found unique watercolor designs to use in the backdrops of the cards. I also liked the borders and signatures on the cards so included those. For example, Nick Bollinger will be attending Montana State and loves the outdoors. For his card, I included a forest background.  Another thing that Allen and Ginter are known for is their non-baseball sets of cards. These include anything from other celebrities to random objects. I wanted to include a non-baseball set of cards in my portfolio also. Here is an example of my friend Jack Spiegle who dressed up as Freddie Mercury from Queen along with the back...
Read more