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marterburn
Active member
Just thought I'd share what I thought of these, now that they've released and they look...almost exactly as terrible as I first thought.
First the good. The Top Prospects set is beautiful. It's nothing original graphically, there's a feeling of some of those late 90's SP sets. But that's not a bad thing. The balance of the team color on all four sides creates beautiful symmetry, as do the graphic elements as a whole. These things make the isolated photo in the middle really pop.
Also, I will say that the base set design is actually not terrible. The team color on the bottom banner compliments said color in teh player's uniform. Standard design stuff there. The graphic element 'piping' lead away from each other create a nice simple balance between the text banner and photo. There's even a nice heavy shadow to separate the piping from the photo. However, the the presence of team color looks terrible in the parallels in almost all instances, unless the color matches the team color. You get some really ugly gold/red & red/green combos. This isn't a Christmas set, Topps.
...and now for the train wreck. The autograph set. The Bowman platinum auto set design has never been good, but this one is the worst.
1. The autos that are stickers look especially bad here. But when you put them in the middle of an empty field of foil with no graphic element framing them, what do you expect. Something more than that 'slapped on' look? Not really.
2. The placement of the auto itself, in empty foil field, is very Tristar. Why is Topps imitating Tristar?
3. The relic cutouts mirror or mimic nothing in the graphics, so they look terrible. OK fine; they look better than rectangles.
4. Look at the piping. They're going from the 'draw attention to the picture' feel with it. The problem is, it's way too powerful. The piping dominates over the picture.
5. The player photo overlays the piping. So on some cards, like say, Bryce Harper or Taijuan Walker, it looks like the piping is shooting out of his head, which goes against rule 1 of graphic design (or photography). OK, it's not rule 1, but it's in the 101 class.
6. See above about the team color combining terribly with the parallels.
7. On the parallels, that empty foil field on the right of the card really pops. It's never a good thing when a blank area of the card pops.
Did I miss anything? Anyone see anything good about these?
First the good. The Top Prospects set is beautiful. It's nothing original graphically, there's a feeling of some of those late 90's SP sets. But that's not a bad thing. The balance of the team color on all four sides creates beautiful symmetry, as do the graphic elements as a whole. These things make the isolated photo in the middle really pop.
Also, I will say that the base set design is actually not terrible. The team color on the bottom banner compliments said color in teh player's uniform. Standard design stuff there. The graphic element 'piping' lead away from each other create a nice simple balance between the text banner and photo. There's even a nice heavy shadow to separate the piping from the photo. However, the the presence of team color looks terrible in the parallels in almost all instances, unless the color matches the team color. You get some really ugly gold/red & red/green combos. This isn't a Christmas set, Topps.
...and now for the train wreck. The autograph set. The Bowman platinum auto set design has never been good, but this one is the worst.
1. The autos that are stickers look especially bad here. But when you put them in the middle of an empty field of foil with no graphic element framing them, what do you expect. Something more than that 'slapped on' look? Not really.
2. The placement of the auto itself, in empty foil field, is very Tristar. Why is Topps imitating Tristar?
3. The relic cutouts mirror or mimic nothing in the graphics, so they look terrible. OK fine; they look better than rectangles.
4. Look at the piping. They're going from the 'draw attention to the picture' feel with it. The problem is, it's way too powerful. The piping dominates over the picture.
5. The player photo overlays the piping. So on some cards, like say, Bryce Harper or Taijuan Walker, it looks like the piping is shooting out of his head, which goes against rule 1 of graphic design (or photography). OK, it's not rule 1, but it's in the 101 class.
6. See above about the team color combining terribly with the parallels.
7. On the parallels, that empty foil field on the right of the card really pops. It's never a good thing when a blank area of the card pops.
Did I miss anything? Anyone see anything good about these?
