A Hair Off Square   custom cards

I posted this Joakim Soria 1983 Topps design a few days ago. I think it is the strongest looking card I have put up on the site. If you are familiar with the 1983 design you know that all cards are portrait style(no sideways shots) and the circles vary from right to left. I’m not sure if there is a method to which card got the inset picture on the right or left or if it was completely random.

I wanted to do a set of 1983 Topps for the Kansas City Royals so I made a design with the circle on each side. I took it one step further and made a sideways design for 1983 Topps. It didn’t work. I thought trying this worked well with 1980 Topps set I did. They looked nice as a sideways desgin. 1983 simply doesn’t.

I have put examples of 4 Joakim Soria 1983 Topps cards above. One I love, one that is almost as good, one that looks weak and one that is terrible. I used the same pictures to illustrate these four cards. If I had chosen different picture they might have fit the sideways cards better. The picture is not the only issue with them however. It also has way too much white space in the middle under the main picture. I could eliminate this by moving the name on one line and team and position on another line but then I am changing the card design all together.

I like to come up with a landscape design for my cards because it really opens up the options for pictures that I can use, which can be very troublesome to find at times. This design however will have to stick to the basics.