2014 Spirit Base Series 1: 141-150

#141 - Mike Adams
I'm not super-pleased with this photo here. It's pretty grainy and dark but this was by far the best option amongst very few others.

#142 - Clint Barmes
I do believe this is the first bunting shot of the set. It's a pretty good one, too.

#143 - Matt Holliday
This would also make an easy Panini photo. Just airbrush the StL off his helmet and the World Series patch on his sleeve and you're good to go.

#144 - Alexi Amarista
Looking at this pic, the overwhelming thought going through my mind is "DE PLANE! DE PLANE!"

#145 - Marco Scutaro
Ah, good ol' Mallet Finger. It's weird to see the empty seats behind him at AT&T.

#146 - Danny Farquhar
Loved him in Shrek.

#147 - Chris Archer
If the background looks weird, it's because it's this.

#148 - Jurickson Profar
I'm still not buying into the hype, but I will say this is probably one of the best looking cards of the set thus far.

#149 - Mark Buehrle
There must be a really prolific photography in St. Petersburg because soooooo many of the images I flip through seem to have that huge red State Farm banner in the outfield. Either that or State Farm likes to smear its logo over every ballpark.

#150 - Wilson Ramos
Interesting angle here and some nice blue sky behind him.

Well, that brings us to the midway point of Series 1. Part of me is proud that I'm still going at this strong while another part of me is numbed by the fact I have so many cards left to make. I'll keep plowing ahead. But I do think this is a good point to take a break and maybe post something different for a bit. I was thinking about doing a design for the packaging. Maybe even an insert or two. Stay tuned.

THIS IS THE REMIX: 1986 Topps

As per Rod's request, here's my stab at remixing the 1986 Topps design. And since this is my first chance to brag a bit about the Giants' World Series victory, I figured I'd feature some of the standout players from the 4 teams that made it to the LCSs this season.

Let's take a look at the original 1986 design. This is probably one of the most iconic sets for collectors of my era so I hope I'm not treading on sacred ground here. The most prominent feature is the big, funky team name over the black border. The big team name in team color is really effective but my goodness, that font... Those As and Es are from another planet. That quirkiness is probably a reason why some love this design while it's likely the reason some might hate it. No matter which side of the fence you reside, it's way past its prime here in 2012.

The rest of the design is refreshingly simple. The black border extends down the edges just a little bit more before giving way to the white border around the rest of the photo. At the bottom, the player name is set in all caps and loosely spaced to fill up the horizontal real estate. The last element is the player position tucked inside a colored circle tucked into the bottom left corner of the photo.

Now let's take a look at the updates. First up is the font up top. I went with Dispatch Black once again since it comes in a variety of widths. That flexibility helps when you have team names of varying length. The Cardinals is the condensed width while the other 3 are the standard width. It has enough personality to help it balance between boring and obnoxious. It hits the sweet spot right in the middle.

Next up is the player name found at the bottom. I wanted to add a little more color to the design so I made a rectangle at the bottom of the photo to house the player name. There's also room in there for the player position so it isn't hanging out by itself in the corner like before. There are also some minor tweaks to the border widths to help with the centering issues that plague the 1986 set.

This is probably the most subtle of my remixes so far but that's partly due to the success and simplicity of the original design. The biggest change is definitely the font up top, the most iconic feature of almost any card design from the 80s. So what's up next?