In my previous two attempts at Redefining the Design, I was met with elation at my redesign of 1981 Topps, and down-right contempt from an anonymous source for the redesign of 1987 Topps. Here is the harshest criticism I have yet to encounter on this blog:
“You must be kidding that you think your plain design is better than the original wood grain card, let a lone (sic) anything special. Overproduced? YES! bad (sic) design? NO! Regardless, could the design be improved? YES! Is your an improvement? NO! I wish they never overproduced it because they were a nice set that most people really liked but got sick of due to the overkill.”
Man, I never knew that someone had a soft spot for 1987 Topps. Collectors never cease to amaze me. And by the way, Mr./Ms./Mrs. Anonymous, I have about 8,000 wood-grained 1987 Topps cards if you want to pay for the shipping.
Given that stellar review, I feel it is time to once again tinker with a Topps design, and potentially perform a George Lucas-esque raping of someone’s childhood. Not taking much of a gamble on this entry, I only went back one year in time to, in my opinion, the ultra boring 1986 Topps set. It’s not cool enough to have 100% black borders, so you’re left with 25% not-so-cool black borders that still flake. Maddening.
Besides the wannabe-1971 Topps design, my main beef is the team lettering at the top of the card. What is that, the bastard child of Mr. Art Deco and Ms. Miami Vice?
“You must be kidding that you think your plain design is better than the original wood grain card, let a lone (sic) anything special. Overproduced? YES! bad (sic) design? NO! Regardless, could the design be improved? YES! Is your an improvement? NO! I wish they never overproduced it because they were a nice set that most people really liked but got sick of due to the overkill.”
Man, I never knew that someone had a soft spot for 1987 Topps. Collectors never cease to amaze me. And by the way, Mr./Ms./Mrs. Anonymous, I have about 8,000 wood-grained 1987 Topps cards if you want to pay for the shipping.
Given that stellar review, I feel it is time to once again tinker with a Topps design, and potentially perform a George Lucas-esque raping of someone’s childhood. Not taking much of a gamble on this entry, I only went back one year in time to, in my opinion, the ultra boring 1986 Topps set. It’s not cool enough to have 100% black borders, so you’re left with 25% not-so-cool black borders that still flake. Maddening.
Besides the wannabe-1971 Topps design, my main beef is the team lettering at the top of the card. What is that, the bastard child of Mr. Art Deco and Ms. Miami Vice?
Well, the one really good thing about the black top is that it can make the text pop. I tinkered with the idea of losing the 25%, and going 100% midnight, but my vintage oriented self cried foul. Instead, I opted to try the text from the mid-80s road uniforms. Back then, it seemed that all the teams used a script font of the City/State name for their grey jerseys. Hence why I came up with the following…
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What do you think?
3 comments:
I like it! I never realized until reading your post, but I think I've always had a problem with the font Topps chose for the team names in the '86 set. Your change vastly improves the design, in my opinion.
I like this redesign. 1986 was the year I bought the most packs, so after ripping those open I got real tired of the design and found it boring.
I prefer the old style '86. I always liked it.
I'm not surprised at all over the defensiveness over '87 Topps. It's a set that a ton of bloggers grew up on and they like it for that reason.
Personally, I find it overrated.
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