September 13, 2006

The Set That Never Was (But Very Well Could've Been)

When I first started this exercise, I asked that anyone interested send me their take on what the average Topps set would look like. I honestly thought that I wouldn't get any response, thinking that even though baseball card design has influenced design and art since the inception of the form, not too many people had the time (or the desire, really) to try their hand at it. Thankfully, I was wrong.

May I present to you...the only submitted design and therefore the winner...Dave from Vermont. And now, in the artist's own words: "This one is inspired by the 67s (big space for the photo), the 61s (small box at bottom for name/team/position) and the 60s (team logo in bottom left, tho only two Topps 60s sets had team logos, but what the hell, right?). One other thing: I made a point to use sans-serif fonts; seems Topps liked those plain (but bold and readable) names." And this design would've won no matter what anyway, as Dave made a point to mention that he accomplished his design on work time. So here's to you Dave, way to go. My only critique would be that I'll be damned if Yaz is gonna represent in Yankee Stadium. I mean, I know he's from Long Island, but c'mon. Let's rouse a sleeping Topps photographer in Boston, for chrissakes, and get a good one of Carl throwing his glove at a ball completely out of reach.

Also, I totally screwed up the checklist, as I forgot to include #'s 49 (Ed Brinkman, Senators) and 50 (Tony Oliva, Twins). Here's the new version.

2 comments:

Mets Guy in Michigan said...

Wow!!! That set looks awesome! It's like something Upper Deck would have done when it was making the Vintage sets -- a near Topps copy, but not quite. Nice job.

Dave

Anonymous said...

I have another option for you here.
It incorporates several elements from the mid to late 1960s Topps cards.