Category Archives: donini fucking sucks at card design

My Collecting Commandments And Absolute Damnation

Posted on by
Reply

The first Absolute Football case break has been posted on blowout, and I think this may be the first year where I wont even buy a single or pack even. To borrow from Mario, the set pretty much breaks all of my commandments of card design, especially in the content of the set. Ill go over a few of them here in the context of the pictures posted by the user.

Thou Shalt Not Use Rainbow Foil Board

I talked earlier on how awful the use of rainbow foil and mirror board has become. Absolute is ENTIRELY printed on it. Every card. Every single fucking card. The cards look ridiculous in a bad way, almost making the practice of “collecting a rainbow” a new thing entirely. The condition of the cards out of the packs are obviously going to be the same as last year, something that everyone thought was a huge drawback to this set.

Thou Shalt Not Obscure The Player On The Card

There is no worse practice in cards than when a player is hidden by needless additions to a card. In this set, there are MANY examples of players being more than 50% disrupted by a swatch window. I really couldn’t care less about having a ginormous swatch on a card, as design will always be more important. When that mammoth swatch covers up the player, I would rather run my hand through a wood chipper than pay my money to get one of them. In 2005, DLP managed to put together a great set in the tools of the trade giant swatch set, and NONE of the swatches were intrusive on the actual subject’s picture.

Thou Shalt Not Use Event Used Football Swatches

Its one thing to use a swatch of a football from the rookie premiere that was tossed around for two throws before going in a bucket (10 per player!), but to force it into the design of the card when its not needed, deserves even more lightning from the heavens in smitten anger. Donini is weirdly obsessed with including these swatches of football into as many products as it can, despite the fact that they have less connection to the player than a jersey worn around for 30 seconds. Its really unfortunate.

Thou Shalt Not Break Line Borders With Swatch Windows

If you are going to put die cuts and oddly shaped swatch windows into a product, you have to fit it seemlessly into the design. That means creating the borders to fit the placement, not just plopping them willy nilly whereever you want. Take a look at the line borders of the cards featuring swatches, and not just the edges of the cards. Each line could be considered a border, and when you have swatches that break those lines, it looks amateurish and poorly conceived. A line should never be broken by a swatch window, unless it makes sense in the context of the design. This set is ripe with cards that break every last word of this commandment.

Thou Shalt Not Overuse Parallels In ANY Product

Although Tracy Hack-ler thinks that Donruss never uses many parallels in their products, they are known industry wide for the practice of paralleling their cards to hell. Absolute is a testament to that fact, with the set featuring humongous numbers of needless parallels of each card. Like many Donruss products, each card has a series of parallels of the non-hit base card, a jersey parallel, a patch parallel, an auto parallel, and an auto jersey parallel, and an auto patch parallel. That means there could be in upwards of ten parallels for every subset in the product (this is the DLP standard). Tools of the trade takes it to a whole new level, with a good percentage of the cards featuring more than 20 parallels, including a parallel series without a swatch. That is just absurd in every way.

Thou Shalt Not Lie About All Star Game Jerseys

If you remember, Topps has used their flagship product and Triple Threads in baseball to showcase all star game swatches, when really they are just jerseys used in a topps event with the players. All star game jerseys are extremely hard to come by, as many players want to keep them as a memento of the game, therefore making them sought after items by jersey collectors. This year, Absolute has an entire fucking subset of tools of the trade dedicated to the “jerseys,” when really they seem to be not even close to being game worn. The cards also say “event worn” leading us to believe these were just slipped on and off at the pro bowl just like the rookies at the premiere.

(This one breaks more than one commandment!)
Thou Shalt Use Bright Backgrounds With Sticker Autos

Since Panini RARELY uses on card autos, Absolute is 100% sticker autos. The problem is that many of the stickers are slapped onto cards that feature blocks of dark colors. The rookie premiere materials cards are a focus of this set, and many of the team colors are featured in some way in weirdly designed line blasts. These awful looking blocks of color created by the line blasts cross the places where the stickers go. Because teams like the Vikings and others use darker colors, those rookies autos are interrupted. At least it still looks better than Topps using bordered boxes for theirs.

Its really too bad that Absolute has made it to a point of parody, as it used to be a favorite set of mine. I bought one solitary single last year, was disappointed and gave up on the set altogether. This year im not even going to waste my time. What a waste.

OooOOOooO! Shiny!

Posted on by
Reply

What the fuck? Seriously. Im so fucking sick of companies using mirror board, foil board and especially the rainbow foil board as a coating for their cards. It chips, it looks awful, and the cards are never in acceptable condition out of the pack. This is because every single ding is highlighted by the poor printing process and the crappy coating doesnt highlight the subject of the card. I dont get why it is used, especially when most of us cant fucking stand it.

For those of you who dont understand what I am talking about, pull out one of your cards from Absolute, Leaf Certified, Triple Threads, Elite, Prestige, Threads and a few others that are printed on what seems to be mirror or foil. The cards are pretty tough to miss. They arent printed on cards like the Chrome, where the card is produced on special stock, but more like cheaper stock that looks like the player pictures were printed on wrapping paper and rolled onto the boards. For this, you can see why so many of think this type of shitty printing should disappear.
Because the cards are printed on cheap stock, they become extremely condition sensitive, as well as looking like poop. When the coating is chipped or damaged, especially in production, its almost unavoidable in drawing your attention. Unlike other normal cards, where the coating cannot peel off, a ding is more in the actual stock than the card. For these types, damage usually keeps the printing in tact, rather than looking like it is peeling off. Foil board isnt so lucky, because of the process in which it is printed. You will see that in addition to the stock being damaged, the foil overlay will also pull apart. Because its reflective, a ding is much easier for anyone to recognize due to the breaking of the flat mirrored surface.
The looks are the other part of the equation, as a good card on mirror board looks twice as bad as a bad card on regular flat stock. I cant think of a worse idea to print cards as one printed on a surface that reflects rainbows. Not only that, but the scans are basically impossible to get something that an online collector can appreciate, leading to more problems. If I ever have the choice between a card printed on rainbow board or a card on a flat board like base Topps, ill take the flat every time. That MO is something I know many collectors have adopted in recent years, only because buying boxes of products like Limited, Triple Threads and Absolute lead to getting damaged cards practically 100% of the time.
Panini is obviously the worst offender, as almost every set they produce uses some sort of foil board, with the exception of National Treasures. Im sure for those of you who have ever bought a box of Absolute, you have also pulled a rookie premiere card that is missing part of a letter die cut, or has edges that look like a tiny ding fairy came and hammered in the sides like crazy. You can also go and check out Beckett’s crapfully displayed preview for the 2009 set, and really get a good idea what to expect. Remember, those preview cards are supposed to be the BEST ones they can find. Go check it out, im going to guarantee you have the same idea I had. The first thing I thought was, “If these are the best, holy fuck.”
Lets be honest here, 15 years ago collectors liked shiny things and were impressed by a card that took it to a level that hadnt been done. Now, we are more impressed by cool design elements rather than some crappy board you have stockpiledd in the back room from 1998. I think most people agree that cards like the Rookie Premiere Material cards from Absolute, the Freshman Fabrics from Certified, or the Phenoms in Limited would be that much cooler if they didnt look like you were looking into a mirror with rainbow accents. Imagine those cards on a flat stock with brighter colors and clearer elements. Its ridiculous how much better that would be.
Of course the morons who produce each of Donruss’ releases are running around with blinders on as usual, thinking that their horrid design team has great ideas, rather than accepting the fact that the tech is old and rotting. “You mean we could go back to the drawing board and do the work to make a good set, or we could do it like last year and hit the links? Huh, thats an easy one.”
Foil is the work of hacks, and its starting to reek of laziness across the board. Instead of putting out cards that actually look good, its seeming like the companies are using the foil to hide a bad design. Because the colors are dulled and the design becomes obscured, its not as obvious how crappy the card really looks. Lets get rid of the mirrors, rainbows, bright neon orange, and all the other tricks. Start doing better. Make cards look good. Its that simple.

Product Review: 2009 Donruss Threads Football

Posted on by
Reply

Usually, each year, when Threads hits stores, you can set your watch for the start of the real football products to start. Usually as well, Threads is one of those products that tends to hold more value as the year drags on. This year, things may be different, unfortunately for the fans of this product.

Design/Creativity

There has been one constant all year for Panini products, and thats the over use of the line tool in photoshop. Every product seems to be swimming with cards with angular designs, most of which look busy and hard to follow. Threads takes this to a whole new level. The base cards have been chronicled here as some of the worst I have seen all year. In addition to being a fathead style player photo (player looking like a fathead stuck on the background) instead of a game shot, the lines look like they are attacking the player like a game of invaders. When you see some of the MANY parallels for each card, some on mirrorboard, it gets worse. For every one of those parallels that doesnt have a swatch or an auto, the card also looks incredibly top heavy, as the Panini design team still hasnt found a way to make every parallel of a card look like it can stand alone.
As for the Rookie Collection cards, they stayed again with the horizontal design, which I like, but the design just doesnt cut it. Its almost like they turned the opaque-o-meter down to about 60%, stacked about 5 levels on top of each other, and added a player picture into the middle of all of it. Then they took a weird looking helmet off pic and made it look sketched on. Add in that the Threads logo cuts straight across most of the player pics at the waist, and I cant say its something that looks even remotely good. Its a hodge podge of craziness, and Im very diappointed.

The Letters this year look pretty much the same as last year, which is fine, as they are always the focus of the set. The problem is that they tapered the border back a little, which has shrunk the player pic even more than it was last year, so that detracts from the overall presentation. However, the Letters arent all that bad. It sucks that they cant be built ahead of time with the team colors, but this is fine. Nothing great.
A star of the set, as always is the Gridiron Kings cards which are great this year. The painted style, along with a design that is simple and not overstated, makes these cards a must get for the product. I have always loved these cards, and this year looks like another home run for these. Too bad this type of design couldnt have been more of a focus.
The rest of the subsets in Threads are pretty typical, weird looking swatch placement on cards with even weirder design elements. I really think that Panini could solve a lot of their problems if every card didnt have to have ten parallels. They are really the only company that still employs this way of doing things, and it detracts from every element of the set. The cards just reek of lazy attempts at filling the product, and I wish they would just do it the right way instead of the ways that people hate.
Rating:
Autograph Cards
The autograph cards in Threads scream Panini from the mountaintops. There arent any that dont have non-autoed parallels, and most of the time the labels dont look like they fit into the designs. I would rather see them take an approach similar to National Treasures and save the autographs for the good subsets.
One of the major problems I have with Autos in most of the Panini products is that more than half of the autograph cards are going to be non-premiere scrubs that stand for your box hit. That means you can pull a free agent auto in your box, and get nothing else more times than not. I watched a full case break today, and more than every other box was a crap scrub rookie auto for the whole thing. That is awful.

The Gridiron Kings auto parallels are amazing, unlike most of the regular autos, as they are not mirror boarded. Sometimes they also have a cool frame around them, which makes the cards stand out even more. Its a great save for a non-letter box, which makes me angry that more of the set could not be great like these.
As for the Letters, they are what everyone wants, and this year will be no different. I did see some college numbers on these AGAIN, which made me cringe a few times with Harvin and Beanie Wells not adapting their sigs at the premiere. Also, I saw a college uni Harvin with a pro number sticker, and a pro uni Harvin with a college number uni. Who at QC let that slide?
Rating:
Relic Cards

What can I say that hasnt already been said about Panini and their awful relic cards. Im not sure why no one has decided that maybe its time to change the way these cards are designed. This time, they have used weirdly cut windows to try to distract us from the fact that most of the cards dont look right. Its like “Ooh! My jersey card looks like it has a little jersey looking thing it! I shall call it Mini Jers!” Seriously, we are not that stupid.
Again, the only good looking relic cards are the Gridiron Kings dual swatch cards which look very well done. Still, the rest of the subsets look ridiculous and out of place in the general design of things.
Rating:
Value To The Collector
I would definitely support buying some singles off eBay, but stay far away from the boxes. The odds are that you are going to waste close to 100 bucks on a box with three crap jerseys and a scrub auto. Then you will see that most of the cards look like crap and you will wonder what you just spent your money on.
If you were lucky enough to pull an auto parallel of the Gridiron Kings, Rookie Collection, or a Letter, you can pretty much feel good that the value probably wont drop much as the year continues. Mainly, you have to hit one of those cards to even think about justifying your purchase, but overall the product is just an all around disappointment. Its not Rookies and Stars bad, but
its not on the level it was last year, and definitely not on the level of a product that costs as much as this one does.
Rating:
Overall Impressions
Basically, these cards could have been put into any other Panini set this year and no one would know the difference. I really have no idea why anyone continues to have faith in this take over, as last year things were 10 million times better than this year’s lazy attempt to redesign each set. The solution is pretty simple, ditch the crazy grafitti and the weird lines, and stick to using simple designs with fluid transition between the parts of each subset. Until then, my ratings will continue to be the way they are.
Average Rating:

2009 Product Leaderboard (SO FAR)

1(t). UD Philadelphia Football (3/5 GELLMANS)
1(t). Topps Football (3/5 GELLMANS)
1(t). UD Icons (3/5 GELLMANS)
1(t). UD Heroes (3/5 GELLMANS)
1(t). UD Draft Edition (3/5 GELLMANS)

6(t). Donruss Threads (2/5 GELLMANS)
6(t). Donruss Classics (2/5 GELLMANS)
6(t). Donruss Elite (2/5 GELLMANS)
6(t). Playoff Prestige (2/5 GELLMANS)
6(t). Bowman Draft Picks (2/5 GELLMANS)
11. Score Inscriptions (1/5 GELLMANS)
12. Leaf Rookies and Stars (0/5 GELLMANS – NR)

The Revenge Of The Panini: Brett Favre Is Coming To Threads, Star Wars Cons Across The USA

Posted on by
Reply

Today our favorite grilled sandwich card company has announced that Brett Favre’s first uniformed Vikings card will be in the retail version of Threads. It will be hitting stores like Target and Wal Mart, which makes the Threads blasters that much more likely to sell, but leaves hobby collectors to wait until Absolute or later.

There is one problem though. It looks like this:

Yes, he is wearing his Vikings gear from last week’s preseason game, but the card looks like Panini took a Storm Trooper costume, a referee’s shirt and a zebra hide, put it in a blender, and then used the extract to paint by number. What a busy fucking design.

Laziness Can Lead to a Lot of Things

Posted on by
Reply

I remember back two or three years ago when collectors would go after the Fabric of the Game cards like they made your dick longer or something. They were some of the best cards from the non grilled sandwich version of Donruss, and even I thought they deserved a place in my collection.

When I first saw this year’s edtion of the set I had my doubts about how the final product would turn out. Now that I have stumbled across a few more previews of the cards, my doubts have turned into full on loathing.
You see, instead of going with cards that actually look good, Donini has decided that busy and distracting designs are better than the simplicity of the past. Seems to be a pretty common thing these days, as just about every preview they put out burn my eyes into submission.
Here is what I mean:
Does anyone know where to look? These cards are so ridiculous that I am actually having a hard time finding the players at first glance. What happened to cards like this instead?
So much better.
The problem is that Donini has taken a set that many collect and shot it Plax-style in its leg. Even the swatches on the new cards look fucking gross to the point where I actually have to run my finger over the screen to follow the design. Its almost busy enough to cause seizures like the Pokemon cartoons. Then I saw this:
Im guessing that the card design team was going for a 2009 Donruss Threads: Empire Strikes Back type of feel to it. Im serious, these are fucking awful beyond all rational thought. Which executive would actually look at a set based on that design and say, “YES! Do it! Do it!”?
Maybe the same guy who thought this card was a good idea:
I dont know what it is anymore, its almost like people are too stupid to realize how bad its really gotten. Maybe once Donini actually realizes that this is the worst year of DLP products, ever, things can heal. Its unfortunate to say that for the first time, im actually scared for national treasures. Yeah, its gotten to that point now.