Wednesday, September 16, 2015

2015 Spirit Home Grown


With all the player movement this season, I thought a good insert concept would be to focus on some guys who have risen all the way to the majors with the same team that drafted and developed them. Some people refer to them as "home grown" so that's the name I picked. 50 cards here featuring such players that have at least 5 MLB seasons in the ledger.


Playing off the "grown" part of the title, the design features a grassy background image fading into a subtle paper texture. The title is in an ornate typeface that looks similar to an immaculately tended hedge garden. There are also some green-ish vine-line flourishes adorning the edges of the card. A player cutout overlaps all the elements before softly fading to make room for the the text at the bottom. The cardboard here is uncoated in keeping with the earthy, organic feel of the concept. It also makes a great contrast for the foil-stamped player name and Spirit logo.


The motif carries over to the backs with the grass fade reversed to top-to-bottom. A small player portrait rest in the middle along the top, flanked by the "Home Grown" text and the team logo below. A brief write-up closes things out.

With the checklist here numbering 50, you'd get some of the less-marquee names like Perkins and Gardner here along with heavy hitters like McCutchen and Kershaw and Trout, so something for everyone.