Category Archives: donini fucking sucks at card design

Dont Waste Your Money On Playoff Prestige

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I never got why people pay out of their ass for Prestige cards, especially when they are just base cards. Though it is the first set of the year, its like collectors have long term memory problems with remembering how much these cards tank the minute a real set comes out after the premiere. Classics is always the first set to come out with pro uniform pics, and almost immediately, Prestige becomes an afterthought.

The thing that confuses me the most is the price of the SP base cards, which each year start at astronomical prices, and then end up at normal prices. This Stafford sold a few times at higher than 50 bucks last year when Prestige came out, look at it now. Why would anyone jump on these cards now? We have vision into the future, and buying in at 40 and 50 bucks is NOT worth your time if past sales have any indication. What is even worse, Prestige is now including the Letter signatures that make Donruss Threads such a popular set each year, and those are selling at prices so high, I cant even put it into words.

Basically, just because Prestige is the only set out there, doesn’t mean you need to buy a shitload of your target’s cards right now. You cant even use “I want them in their college jerseys” as an excuse this year, because Upper Deck is preventing that with their NCAA exclusive. Plus, according to a little birdie on my shoulder, Prestige may have even taken it too far with depicting the players, as a lawsuit may be in order. Looks like Upper Deck is deciding to pass along the favor that Topps gave them.

I am telling you right now, if you buy into Prestige, Elite, or even Classics for that matter, you are throwing your money down the drain. Even if you collect the players, WAIT FOR TIME TO PASS. The prices will drop so drastically that mid year, you will be able to pick up these cards at drastically lower prices. If you are buying the Super SPs and hoping that having a complete set will mean as much as it did in 1979, I can tell you that you may just want to stop right now. That, or wait until you can get the cards at much cheaper prices. I mean, Im not sure why people even like these cards, they look ridiculously terrible.

Classics will be out soon enough, and at that point, you will be able to get cards of the players in their full uniforms, and in the gear of the teams you collect. I will warn you again to wait on prices at that time as well, but I know its tough to wait when you get that first picture of your target in his NFL uniform.

Prestige Gets The First Favre Vikings Jersey Card

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Panini just posted a slide show that boasts some pretty terrible cards for the upcoming set. Among the ugly and uninspired cards in the preview was one very interesting little tidbit that seems to have escaped my radar.

It was inevitable that Brett Favre would eventually have jersey cards from his first (and possibly only) year with the Vikings, and it looks like Panini has beat everyone to the punch. Of course, with Upper Deck and Topps out of the game until recently, there really wasnt much competition other than the extreme price of securing the actual swatches. One Favre gamer went on NFL auctions for over 12K, and the Vikings GU Jersey distributor had them selling at 20K a piece on his site. With Favre changing jerseys each half, there are at least 32 out there, but with Panini’s NFL license, I bet they get a deal whenever they need it.
Im hoping that this isnt the first of many jersey cards like this, as these particular cards arent going to leave any sort of lasting legacy. Until we can get an on card signed jersey card of similar ilk, I would believe there are going to be a lot of unhappy Vikings fans. With Platinum supposedly featuring on card signatures for Topps this year, hopefully that will be the first opportunity. Otherwise it will continue to be Panini claiming the first rights to Favre’s first autographed Vikings card with the cop-out stickers in Certified last year.

Examining The Effects of Upper Deck’s Exclusive NCAA License

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Starting this past month, Upper Deck took over the exclusive license for all NCAA related likenesses and images. This meant that sets like Press Pass and SAGE were left without a way to picture the players in their uniforms or helmets. What you may not know is that sets like Prestige and Elite will also have to adjust pretty drastically, and that’s where things get pretty hairy.

As we have seen from previews recently, the Prestige rookie cards look god awful. When I say god awful, I mean that I would rather look at a bloody corpse in some cases. The design is terrible, the horizontal orientation makes the cards look weird, and the final product looks like it was built with the auto in mind. The right half of the card looks way too wide open, like there should be a sticker there, but someone forgot to put it on. Then your eye gets to the player picture and im sure that many of you had a “WTF?” moment just like I did.

See, because of the Upper Deck exclusive contract, Panini had to picture the players without any logos or likenesses regarding the schools they went to. In previous years, the players were pictured in full college garb, and actually looked like they should. This year, they are pictured helmetless and close up, and for some players, saying that they look goofy is an understatement.

It would be one thing if this were baseball or basketball, because for those sports, the player’s likeness centers around their face, because that is the way we see them on the field. The uniform is secondary, and many baseball and basketball players have made lots of money on that fact alone. In football, many player’s persona centers around their helmet and uniform, because that is the way the fans get to see them so much of the time. When cards feature players up close and personal, they get a much different reaction due to the way that people expect to see their favorite players. I couldn’t tell you what Ndamukong Suh looks like without his helmet on, but if I saw him in full uniform, I could point him out in a crowd.

When you also factor in that Donruss Elite is going to have to find a similar workaround, it becomes more and more likely that a lot of collectors are not going to like the way the cards look. If you don’t believe me, compare the cards from the Press Pass set that was out before the exclusive with the one that was released after. Its no comparison, especially when considering the look of the card.

Upper Deck may have made a dent in the first few releases of the year, but I wouldn’t say that it is something so big that people wont be able to get over it. For people like me, having helmet-less players on the cards is an immediate deal breaker, but not everyone is like that. Regardless, it has forced Panini to switch up their game, and so far, the results have been horrid. Point made, Upper Deck. Point made.

NFL Draft: Panini Finally Has A Great Idea, But Poor Execution Abounds

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Panini posted these pics on their facebook page earlier today, and I must applaud them for a great way to get the rookies onto cards with the teams that just drafted them. These look to be hard signed, which will be good for their early sets, I just hate the way these cards look. I have always hated the plastic helmets, and these dont really do much for someone like me. The design and the player pics look awful as well, but Im guessing these are pretty hastily made. Great idea, poor execution as usual.



We also got a new preview of Tim Tebow’s first cards in prestige, and I think that they are a complete downgrade over last year’s design. Although they feature a team logo and will most likely be SPed to death, the design isnt as good looking as last year. For base cards, the 2009 Prestige rookies werent terrible looking, and I actually had some of them signed at the rookie premiere over the ones from UD draft or Bowman DP & P. This year’s look awful.

A Comment 2010 Score Football and the Future Of Panini Football

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Score football isnt worth a post on here, mainly because of its complete lack of anything worth buying the product for. In fact, I think it is THE most worthless product of the year, but I feel like I need to say something about an observation here.

When it comes to 2010 Licensed Football, Panini is pretty much it for the time being. If they are going to continue putting out stuff like Score, looking almost identical to 2009 Score, we are going to have a major problem here. I have always stood by the fact that exclusivity is a terrible thing that could lead to sweeping instances of uninspired junk and rehashed sets, but this, Prestige and Elite are taking it to a whole new level. Based on their first few previews, there has been little proof that the design team at Panini is taking their newfound exclusivity seriously. Prestige hasnt changed minus a few tweaks to the base design. Elite (Prestige Chrome) hasnt either. Score is pretty much a tweaked version of 2009 Score. Why the fuck arent they getting off their ass and earning the respect of the people who loved UD football with new designs and cool concepts? A revamped Prestige and a vastly different Elite would have definitely garnered excitement. Instead its the same old shit with different players. Those same auto Manu-patches, boring subsets, a million parallels of every card, rainbow foil, NOTHING IS FUCKING DIFFERENT. I am tired of this bullshit.
Truthfully, I am hoping for good things out of Panini Football this year, because otherwise Im stuck buying a complete slate of 2009 products instead. From what I have seen, things are not looking very good for my collecting in the foreseeable future. Also, if they continue to think that boring shit like Panini Platinum basketball converted for the NFL is going to fly with me, they are sadly mistaken. You cant just take Classics and redo it ten times for a full calendar and expect me to buy it. But, with an exclusive license (practically) I guess you dont need good shit anymore to be viable, all you need is cards for people to buy. Then again, that was the point I have been touting for the last few months anyways.
In fact, I am so certain that there will be nothing new, that I will make my predictions now. Absolute will have the exact same set up, the RPMs will have ZERO difference from 2007, 2008, and 2009, the Tools of the Trade will be back and looking like they were made for last year’s set, and the whole goddamn thing will be in foil. Classics will have a tweaked base design with a different background than 2009 (still just as terrible), the same subsets with a million parallels, and the school colors signatures will be done in paint pen despite the fact that it looks amateur. Limited will be a good set again, but not much will change other than the design of the rookie phenoms. The Threads letters will spread to other products because Panini cant think up anything else. When Threads actually comes out, the letters wont be any different, and the design will continue to puzzle just about everyone. Rookies and Stars will continue to look like it was created under a bridge while viewing murals spray painted on a wall. Gridiron Gear will continue to look like someone raided the stock background vault on Adobe Photoshop, and will still have hot boxes that 12 year olds will love to get thanks to the eight $2 jersey cards you get in them. National Treasures will be as visually disappointing as this years and will not go back to the way it was when we actually liked the concept. They will tout the on card autographs of the rookies, but the rest will still be stickers.
Total number of 2010 veteran on card autos? Zero. Total number of 2010 rookie on card autos? 3 subsets in different products. Total innovations or creative ideas? None. Total packs of 2010 product I will buy? Goose egg. Times I will rant about rehashed sets from them? Incalculable.